Everyday jewels. A rediscovered Picardy treasure.
NMR| N° d'inventaire | 23479 |
| Format | 22 x 28 |
| Détails | 144 p. |
| Publication | Paris, 2021 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782711878390 |
At the end of the 19th century, near Amiens, the painter and collector Albert Maignan acquired an exceptional archaeological treasure: thirty-eight pieces of Renaissance jewelry that had just been discovered. These were mainly semi-luxury accessories, affordable to the urban bourgeoisie. Several pieces of devotional jewelry, rosaries, and small reliquaries, but also scented jewelry, gold and silver chains, hat signs, buttons, and belt buckles...
The owner of this treasure remains unknown. Was it a bourgeois family from Amiens? A Picardy goldsmith? The troubles that hit the region in the mid-16th century (wars between France, the Empire, and England, and the Wars of Religion) certainly explain why people might have wanted to protect valuable objects.
A fundamental restoration carried out on these "silver and gold jewels" recently made it possible to free them from their archaeological matrix, to stop the corrosion of the metals and to give them back an appearance very close to that of the 16th century.
This publication traces the history of this treasure and highlights unpublished and unique objects in French public collections - extremely rare and precious testimony to a production that has largely disappeared, which a simple chance has brought to light...
At the end of the 19th century, near Amiens, the painter and collector Albert Maignan acquired an exceptional archaeological treasure: thirty-eight pieces of Renaissance jewelry that had just been discovered. These were mainly semi-luxury accessories, affordable to the urban bourgeoisie. Several pieces of devotional jewelry, rosaries, and small reliquaries, but also scented jewelry, gold and silver chains, hat signs, buttons, and belt buckles...
The owner of this treasure remains unknown. Was it a bourgeois family from Amiens? A Picardy goldsmith? The troubles that hit the region in the mid-16th century (wars between France, the Empire, and England, and the Wars of Religion) certainly explain why people might have wanted to protect valuable objects.
A fundamental restoration carried out on these "silver and gold jewels" recently made it possible to free them from their archaeological matrix, to stop the corrosion of the metals and to give them back an appearance very close to that of the 16th century.
This publication traces the history of this treasure and highlights unpublished and unique objects in French public collections - extremely rare and precious testimony to a production that has largely disappeared, which a simple chance has brought to light...