Bijoux De Scène De La Comédie-Française

Exhibition at the École des Arts joailliers, Paris, 13 June - 13 October 2024

Crowns, tiaras, ornaments and bracelets... The illustrious Comédie-Française, founded in Paris in 1680, is home to unsuspected treasures. Worn by the greatest actors and actresses of their time, including Talma, Geneviève Casile and Sarah Bernhardt, these jewels were designed to create the illusion of an emperor's head, a queen's neck or a tragedienne's arms.

Fake by nature, these jewels embody an essential role that goes far beyond being a simple stage accessory. Chiselled from cut or coloured glass, copper and brass, pewter or vermeil, they are a marvellous imitation of precious stones and diamonds, antique cameos and gold and silver. The extreme complexity and ingenuity of their workmanship bear witness to the unique skills of the goldsmiths of their time.

This exhibition catalogue reveals for the first time some forty of these stage jewels from the Paris theatre, dating from the late eighteenthᵉ century to the 1980s, enriched with costumes, graphic works and archive documents, in order to understand their dimension that is both historical and symbolic.