Hermitage Magazine, Spring 2008 N 1 (10)

Issue topic: Jewels

Masterful Jewelled Treasures

In daily world of today’s museums the word ‘treasure’ has lost all value whatsoever. It is thought that if it is not included in the name of an exhibition, people will not come. Or take the word ‘masterpiece’, it is a word which politicians and journalists particularly love. Our world is downright infested with masterpieces. It is only the word ‘jewel’ which so far remains intact, although from among the most valuable jewels there have already appeared the artificial diamonds, emeralds and pearls. Jewelled adornments continue to excite the human breast, including even those who love the beauty in them and not the price.

Precious stones and metals and the effects made from them are in and of themselves a personification of beauty: natural, born of God and artfully revealed or recast by Man. In them, an echo can be heard of that universal heaven which almost all religions promise their followers.

Jewels possess yet one more peculiarity – they accumulate history better and more richly than other items. Nothing speaks so eloquently about people than the jewels which belong to them or are connected with their lives – even if they are only legends. The diamond monogram of Catherine’s ladies-in-waiting is as great a symbol of the age as the golden snuffboxes with the depictions of Minerva given to the participants of Catherine’s coup d’etat. Or Platon Zubov’s snuffbox, said to be a weapon for murdering Emperor Paul and damaged from the blow. And nearby the duplicates of the imperial regalia made by Faberge, in which you can clearly see that the great craftsman was inspired by eclecticism, and his distinctive taste. An enigma of history becomes more interesting when jewels start to take over the story.

Jewellery lives not only in history. Precious stones and metals are still mined, and jewellers work their trade on them. And museums try to teach the masters and the buyers what is good taste with various levels of success.

Mikhail Piotrovksy,

Director of the State Hermitage Museum

Contents:

Events:

Celebrations: The Tomcat’s Day

Festivals: The Grand Bear

Exhibitions: The Magic of Light; Glitter and Splendour in the Manege

Anniversaries: The Birthday of Art Studio

Awards: A Precious Mark of Gratitude

Premier: Successful Guest Performances and a Premier at the Mariinsky Theatre

Art Market: MegaExhibition at the Big Apple

Architecture:
The Flying Dutchman
Pavel Chernomorsky

Exhibitions:
Among Friends: The Art of Chuck Close
Christopher Gordon

Theatre:
Future Stars
Barend Toet

Books:
Book Marks
Olga Zimina

Music:
The Musical Garden of the Maestro Penderecki
Yulia Kantor

Film:
War and Peace and the 20th Century. The On Screen Fate of a Russian Classic
Sergei Ilchenko

Jewels:

All Degrees of Rapture
Yulia Kantor

Three Faces of Classical Ballet
Olga Pakhotnaya

Chinese Beauty
Maria Menshikova

The Unfading Gift of Love
Nina Verzhbinskaya

From the Varangians to the Greeks: The Treasures of Novgorod the Great
The Brilliant Grandeur of the Empire
Natalia Gormina, Olga Kostuk

Diamonds are Forever
Abigail R .Esman

All Boundaries of Perfection
Alexei Moskin

Art and Money:

Study of the Art Market

Retrospective:

The Archaeologist from the School Book
Mikhail Piotrovsky

In Focus:
The Exhibition ‘From Russia’

Announcements

My Hermitage:
Steven Ducher

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