01. As the curator, would you please share with us the curatorial thinking for the emerald exhibition? From our perspective, we found something in the exhibition similar with three pillars of L'ÉCOLE courses, like gemology, savoir-faire and art history of jewelry.
You are absolutely right regarding the three main pillars of L'ÉCOLE. One of the main purposes of L'ÉCOLE is to make people understand that jewelry is an art, actually the first form of art in the history of humanity, and all the topics we develop through courses, workshops, conferences, publications and exhibitions reflect these fundamental topics. The Garden of Emeralds exhibition propose a discovery of this major gemstone through mineralogy, gemology, the art of cutting and art history. As a precious material, coveted worldwide, it embodies also the history of international trade and transmission of craftsmanship and ideas. It’s a favorite subject for highlighting the bridges between civilizations, between East and West.
02. The name of the exhibition is “Garden of Emeralds”. Would you please share with us your understanding on the name please?
Emeralds inclusions are poetically called “jardin” (garden in French). This title was chosen for the Dubai exhibition and we decided to keep it, because it’s a beautiful and meaningful title, and in order to create a continuity in between the two exhibitions. Even if the contents are different, we kept the same structure. The choice of this title is not only related to inclusions but also to the symbolism of the gem in Islamic civilizations. For Muslims, emerald is a sacred gem associated to the gardens of Paradise.
03. In China, this year is dragon year, and there is a dragon piece on the key visual of the exhibition. Is there any connection between them?
From the 1920s, Indian maharajas travelled to London and Paris to commission the leading jewelers to create new pieces mixing Western fashion and traditional Indian jewelry style. A prestigious creation involving emeralds from the collections of Indian maharajas is the necklace commissioned to Van Clef & Arpels in 1949 by the Maharani of Baroda in the room dedicated to European and Islamic arts and civilizations.
04. Could you introduce the necklace commissioned by Maharani of Barbara from Van Cleef & Arpels in 1949?
When we started to work on the exhibition, the emerald dragon preserved in the Albion Art Jewellery Institute was among the pieces I desired the most and I am particularly grateful to the collector for agreeing to lend it to us. Western dragons are very different from Chinese dragons in terms of shape and meanings. Thanks to Bei He who wrote the part related to Chinese dragon, we are able to compare. In the Western world, since antiquity, there has been a strong connection between dragons and gemstones, particularly emeralds. Dragons are considered as treasure keepers and it was believed that certain gems formed inside them. One of the most popular tale in the Middle Ages is the Alexander-Romance, a collection of stories recounting the exploits of the great king Alexander the Great during the 4th century BCE. He was the king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and spent most of his ruling years conducting a military campaign throughout Western Asia, Central Asia, parts of South Asia and Egypt. By the age of 30, he had created an empire stretching from Greece to northwestern India. Alexander became legendary as a classical hero and, during the Middle Ages, he became the main character of a series of tales recounting his historical and imaginary exploits. In the Alexander-Romance, we find the story of the Valley of emeralds, a deep valley located in Asia, where the gemstones are protected by dragons. Some versions describe the emeralds as dragons’ eyes or embedded in their heads. Alexander and his soldiers had to kill the dragons to recover the emeralds. In the Western world, dragons are fabulous and ambiguous creatures, usually associated with the Devil in Christian religion, but also symbol of power, wisdom and moral virtues.
05. As we all know, the emerald exhibition has just finished in Dubai. From your point of view, what’s the biggest difference between Shanghai and Dubai exhibition? Is there any newly created scenography or tailor made content for China here?
When we started to work on the Shanghai exhibition, I proposed to Shanghai team to highlight the use of emeralds in Chinese precious arts. Giulietta Yu, Managing Director of L'ÉCOLE China, and her team were particularly enthusiastic with this idea and found the Chinese specialists capable to help us in this purpose. Thanks to Professor Mingxing Yang from the University of Wuhan, scientific advisor of the exhibition, who analyzed the gemstones set on the jewels of Ming Dynasty’s King Liangzhuang, it was possible to create this historical content. Thanks to the articles written by Professor Mingxing Yang and Taige Qiu from the Palace Museum (title?) for the catalogue, we learn that emerald was the most valuable gemstone first introduced in China by Muslim merchants from the Middle-East and Central Asia during the Mongol-Yuan period. Gemological analysis lead by Professor Mingxing Yang provided proof of the Egyptian and Austrian origins of emeralds of King Liangzhuang treasure.
06. From this exhibition, we also found emeralds originated in China, would you please share with us more about Chinese related content in this exhibition?
Olivier Segura, who is currently Managing Director of L'ÉCOLE Asia Pacific, and who is the curator of the exhibition in Dubai, wanted to develop a specific content on Chinese emeralds. I followed up on his idea. Chinese emerald deposits have recently been discovered in China, of which the most significant are the Dyakou deposit in Malipo, Yunnan Province, discovered in 1992, and the Davdar deposit in Tashkurgan, Xinjiang Province, discovered in 2002. Chinese emeralds display very different characteristics depending on the deposits, due to the diversity of their geological formation process. Doctor Xiaoyan Yu from the University of Beijing wrote an article on Chinese emerald deposits for the catalogue. Chinese emeralds are quite rare on the gem market and we are grateful to mineralogy collector Yiming Shen for lending us beautiful samples of emeralds from Malipo and to field gemologist Vincent Pardieu to allow L'ÉCOLE to acquire Davdar emeralds for its collection.
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