Parures & Bijoux d'Orient - Ethnic chic

Following in the footsteps of the "Cartier et les Arts de l'Islam" exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and the "Juifs d'Orient" exhibition at the Institut du Monde Arabe, the members of Millon's North Africa, India and Middle East department have put together a selection of ethnic jewelry for you to wear and/or collect. To reveal the richness and diversity of traditional jewelry from Yemen, Oman and the high plateaus of Saudi Arabia, South India and North Africa, over three hundred pieces from four private collections will take visitors on a journey through time and space. Women's jewelry from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia is distinguished by a rich corpus: head ornaments, temporals, earrings, necklaces, fibulae, bracelets and anklets with utilitarian, ornamental and protective functions. The variety of their forms, decorations and techniques testifies to the diversity of the peoples and identities of the regions that make up today's Arab world. These sculptural necklaces, pendants, bracelets and earrings in precious metals - gold, silver and silver-gilt - produced and distributed in both urban and rural settings, cover a period from the second half of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th. Whether for festive occasions or everyday wear, they reveal the inventiveness and expertise of the craftsmen or individuals who created them. Through their magnificence and bewitching variety, they reveal the magic of the adornments of Eastern civilizations and a symbolic universe threatened with oblivion.