On 13 September 2019, the exhibition “Jewels! Glittering at the Russian Court” was formally opened at the Hermitage–Amsterdam Exhibition Centre. This is the second exhibition this year, presenting exceptional masterpieces from the collection of the State Hermitage and organized to mark the 255th anniversary of the museum, the 15th anniversary of collaboration and the 10th anniversary of the opening of the centre.
The Hermitage is one of the world’s largest museums and the collection of jewellery has a special status within it. It formed over the centuries as the imperial family’s and only the finest works of art found their way into it. As a consequence, the collection was the fullest and most diverse in Russia. The imperial collection contained the finest minerals from both an artistic and a mineralogical point of view. It is no coincidence that in Russian the words for “precious” and “jewellery” have the same root.
The display contains more than 300 exhibits, demonstrating the glittering life of the Russian court. It features masterpieces by Cartier, Lalique and Tiffany, the Russian court jeweller Fabergé and many other fine craftspeople. Sparkling diamonds and emeralds, rubies and sapphires in the exhibition demonstrate almost all types of precious stones. Pieces of jewellery, magnificent costumes, ball gowns and other personal items, as well as a gallery of portraits all tell about two centuries in the history of Russian and Saint Petersburg high society. Visitors will learn about the life of the Russian emperors and empresses, first and foremost the mighty Empresses Elizabeth and Catherine the Great. The Russian empresses are joined by Anna Pavlovna, the daughter of Paul I, who was Queen of the Netherlands from 1840 to 1849. “Glittering” along with the Romanovs are aristocratic families of the 18th to early 20th centuries. All together they were national – and even international – fashion-setters.
The impressive design of the exhibition’s display was inspired by the flickering play of light and colour in precious stones and also by monumental Saint Petersburg. Visitors receive the incredible opportunity to look into a treasury that contains the most luxurious works of jewellery that the State Hermitage has to offer. They follow a route that takes them through the most diverse scenes from the life of aristocratic society in years gone by – weddings, celebrations, private encounters. The people who owned these precious trinkets are long dead, but their secrets live on in them, stirring our imagination and making the pages of distant history come to life.
The exhibition curator is
Olga Grigoryevna Kostiuk, head of the State Hermitage’s Department of Western European Applied Art.
More about the exhibition
