Dessins de bijoux : les secrets de la création

Exhibition at the Petit Palais, Paris, 1 April - 20 July 2025

The Petit Palais boasts a little-known collection of almost 5,700 jewellery designs and models that bear witness to the evolution of styles and techniques in the field of jewellery, from prestigious houses such as Boucheron, Cartier, Rouvenat and Vever to rediscovered designers such as Pierre-Georges Deraisme and Charles Jacqueau.

Combining Second Empire and Art Deco jewellery designs, historicist styles from the second half of the 19th century and Art Nouveau, from Lalique to Cartier, from Rouvenat to Boucheron, this exhibition catalogue reveals the diversity and breadth of this heritage, built up since the late 1990s through an exceptional selection of drawings. It focuses on the creative process of haute-joaillerie designers and the life of their fragile paper jewels, which are at times working documents, precious archives or works of art in their own right, and highlights the different stages, from the designers' sources of inspiration and preparatory drawings to the finished jewellery.