Cultural Connections

The house of Chaumet dazzles with an exhibition of invaluable and historically significant jewellery highlighting two centuries of cross-pollination between France and Japan. Charlene Co previews the Tokyo show

- Charlene Co

Tokyo has a potent aesthetic when it comes to fashion and jewellery. It’s a city and a culture to which the world has frequently looked for inspiration. Hence Chaumet’s choice of the Japanese capital for the second exhibition of its grand tour of the Far East, following up on last year’s Imperial Splendors, which was staged at the Palace Museum in Beijing’s Forbidden City.

The World of Chaumet: The Art of Jewellery Since 1780 is a visual dialogue between jewellery and artistic movements, and between historic and contemporary pieces, brought together under the direction of the Louvre’s honorary president, Henri Loyrette, and the founding director of the Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum, Akiya Takahashi. It comprises 300 objects gathered over the past two years from 40 private collectors and 15 museums, as well as 200 prototypes of the tiaras the 238-year-old house is famous for creating. Recently opened, the exhibition is drawing jewellery lovers from across the continent to the Tokyo institution and can be seen until September 17.