Seoul exhibition traces Van Cleef & Arpels’ history through 300 pieces of jewels and special objects

This special exhibition, which is taking place in South Korea’s D Museum until April, showcases the maison’s influential role in shaping contemporary jewellery design

It was a cold, rainy November day in Seoul when Tatler made its way to the D Museum for a journey through Van Cleef & Arpels’ 100-plus years of history. The Time, Nature, Love exhibition, on show until April, offers an opportunity to gaze upon more than 300 jewels and precious objects from the maison’s archives, which together tell the story of the brand’s origins.

Archival documents, sketches and gouache designs stand alongside pieces from the Van Cleef & Arpels patrimony collection—a collection of the maison’s important high jewellery pieces and precious objects from the 20th century—and those that have been loaned from private collectors. “The Van Cleef & Arpels archives start in 1906—the date of the maison’s creation—and [add up to] more than 1.5 linear kilometres of documents, from drawings to photographs [and] registers to manufacturing books, advertisements and family archives ... They are real historical documents,” says Alexandrine Maviel-Sonet, the house’s director of patrimony and exhibitions. Curated by Alba Cappellieri, the exhibition revolves around its three titular sections, which explore jewellery’s complex relationship with time.

“We have 2,500 pieces [in the patrimony collection], so it was very difficult to [select just] 300,” Maviel-Sonet tells Tatler during a coffee break at the exhibition. Drawing from Italian writer Italo Calvino’s Six Memos for the Next Millennium, a book based on a series of lectures he had planned to deliver at Harvard University in 1985-86 before his untimely death, Cappellieri chose concepts highlighting how Van Cleef & Arpels represented the 20th century. The space at the museum dedicated to the theme of “Time”, where the high jewellery was showcased, covered ten sub-themes such as Paris, Lightness, and Multiplicity. “Nature” showcased Fauna, Flora and Botanica. Finally, the “Love” section displayed tokens of history’s great romances, interwoven with precious stones.