Guided Viewing: Designing Jewels: 200 years of French Savoir-Faire (1770 – 1970) with Dr. Florian Knothe at UMAG (Members Only)

The HKU Museum Society is delighted to present a guided viewing of the exhibition Designing Jewels: 200 years of French Savoir-Faire (1770 – 1970) with Dr. Florian Knothe at UMAG.  This exhibition, supported by the French May Arts Festival, is dedicated to jewellery design, exceptional masterpieces, and the artistic process of transforming precious metals and stones.  UMAG, in collaboration with L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts, presents rarely studied, published or exhibited jewellery drawings that remains largely unknown to the public.

Supported by the Van Cleef & Arpels Patrimony Collection and the Van Cleef & Arpels Jewelry Culture Fund—established in 2019 for research, presentation and educational purposes— along with loans from the Lalique Museum in France and private jewellery collections in Hong Kong, the exhibition showcases a remarkable selection of nearly 100 drawings alongside 13 exquisite jewellery pieces. It illustrates France’s long and influential tradition of jewellery making and highlights individual achievements by tracing the creative journey from initial sketches to gouaché renderings to finished masterpieces.

Speaker

Dr. Florian Knothe is the Director of the University Museum and Art Gallery and an Associate Professor in the School of Humanities, HKU. He serves as the MA in Museum Studies programme director and has taught Museum Studies at undergraduate and post-graduate level for more than 15 years. Florian trained in conservation, art history and heritage law, and lectures and teaches internationally. With the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, he held a Mellon Foundation grant to investigate and initiate Museum Studies at HKU.

Image Credit: French May Arts Festival