Back in September 2014, I wrote a post about the closure of the Gilbert Galleries at the V&A, and promised that I would keep you updated about our various projects to make the collection as accessible as possible to the public. So if you want to see some of the Gilbert Collection’s most precious and beautiful gold boxes, go to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge for the exhibition ‘Close-Up and Personal’ (24 March 2014 – 6 September 2015).
In addition to featuring over 60 masterpieces from the Collection, including four of the Frederick the Great snuffboxes, the show presents some archival material relating to the Gilberts’ formative years in London’s fashion industry and displays the extraordinary album of designs from one of the most successful French workshops.
On Friday 26 June, the Study Day Gold Boxes: Manufacture and Marketing from the 18th century to the Present Day will complement the exhibition and explore why gold boxes acquired a unique status as objects of desire and were an indispensable and highly collectible fashion item in the eighteenth century. For more information and booking, click here.
And if you are in Cambridge, don’t miss out the following lunchtime talks:
- ‘Snuff-taking, fashion and accessories‘ by Tessa Murdoch, 27 May 2015;
- ‘François Boucher on enamelled snuffboxes: The art of adapting Rococo engravings‘ by Mélodie Doumy, 10 June 2015;
- ‘Inside a Paris goldsmiths’ workshop: from design to gold box‘ by Heike Zech, 1 July 2015.
