Van Cleef & Arpels Opens Second Paris School of Jewelry Arts and Exhibition Space

Van Cleef & Arpels’ latest gem is measured in square feet rather than carats, with the opening of a second campus of L’École, School for Jewelry Art in Paris.

“We were looking to expand L’École because it was a very strong success,” said the School of Jewelry Arts’ president Lise Macdonald, who previously managed the jeweler’s heritage department after experiences at UNESCO and as an associate director of the Singapore-based ArtScience Museum.

“The capacity for our exhibitions was always quite [limited] and we wanted more space, in a location that wouldn’t be too far away,” she continued. “It needed to be related to the world of culture, of lapidaries, to cultural life and museums — and ideally also a place that wasn’t as [intimidating] as Place Vendôme.”
Located at 16 bis Boulevard Montmartre, in the heart of the Grands Boulevards area famous for its theaters, gemstone dealers and covered passages, a handsome 18th-century town house that is among the oldest built in the area fit the bill.

And Van Cleef & Arpels didn’t just find any home for this new 14,000-square-foot campus that includes more than 8,500 square feet of exhibition spaces, classrooms and even a library called “L’Escarboucle” (or carbuncle, in English), an old-fashioned term formerly given to rubies and dark red garnets that’s also used in heraldry to describe stylized gemstones.


Tucked behind a neoclassical facade on the buzzing thoroughfare, the second Parisian outpost of the school has taken residence in the Hôtel de Mercy-Argenteau, a historical building that had never been open to the public.

While it was built in 1778 for banker Jean-Joseph de Laborde, the building owes its name to its first inhabitant. Count Florimond de Mercy-Argenteau was a diplomat credited with brokering the marriage between France’s heir to the throne Louis and Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria, better known as Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette.

The nobleman, who served as Austria’s ambassador to the French court, was also entrusted with the queen’s jewelry case during the French royal family’s ill-fated flight to Varennes, which would seal their fate. He would then pass the jewels, which included a pair of diamond bracelets, to the executed queen’s family.

“We didn’t know the story before we came here and decided to research it,” Macdonald said. “It was a lovely connection.” Published in December, a 128-page bilingual tome highlights some of the stories these freshly renovated walls could tell.

Given the building’s status as a listed monument, the renovation took a few years to bring installations up to museum standards, under the watchful eye of France’s historic monuments bodies.