Jewellery and gem fans alike will love this exhibition, in which Paula Crevoshay showcases her natural affinity with minerals.
Tuesday-Friday 1.30-6pm; Saturday 10am-12.30pm, 2-5pm; closed Sunday and Monday. General admission €6; concessions €3.
The undisputed queen of colour and one of the most talented independent jewellers at work today, Paula Crevoshay has spent years planning her latest exhibition, Illuminations – Earth to Jewel, which will open at the Musée de Minéralogie in Paris this November. The grand former palace of the Duchess of Vendôme, which overlooks the Luxemburg Gardens, is the perfect location to immerse yourself in what promises to be an illuminating show. The museum houses one of the largest mineral collections in the world, and the exhibition will take visitors on a tour of some of its most beautiful specimens, the gems cut from them and the museum-worthy jewellery Crevoshay creates with these gems.
The exhibition is typical of Alburquerque-based Crevoshay, whose talent for tapping in to a gemstone’s most beautiful qualities means that she will often forgo cut stones, preferring to use baroque gems that remain in their natural state. “I paint with gemstones, not just with their myriad colours but with their light,” she says of her work. "Each gemstone has its own ability to transmit light inherent to that particular mineral. I call it ‘tangible light’ and it is truly the light of the earth.”
By pairing impressive specimens from the museum's vast collection with her own jewels, visitors will be able to trace the journey of a jewel from rough gemstone to finished piece, as well as marvel at the sources of inspiration for Paula's jewels and admire some of her most colourful creations, including her one-of-a-kind Bitterroot brooch - the latest jewel in her Garden of Light series - and a beautiful bracelet set with six spectacular opals, polished but still in their natural, uncut shape.
Not to be missed
Paula Crevoshay's wonderfully lifelike Bitterroot brooch, which captures Montana's flower in all its glory using sapphires sourced entirely from the state. The detail is astounding, with graduated sapphires hand-picked by Crevoshay to capture the flower's colour-changing petals and the anthers depicted in enamel.
