Presentation
Collecting Jewellery
Volume 03
October 7 until November 2

The ‘Collecting Jewellery’ series accompanies the collection presentation ‘The Fascination of Jewellery. 7,000 Years of Jewellery Art at the MAKK’ and is dedicated to different aspects of collecting jewellery. New acquisitions and donations for the Cologne Museum of Applied Arts (also known as MAKK) or highlights and favourite pieces from collectors are presented in changing presentations.

The MAKK's rich and extremely high-quality jewellery collection documents a total of 7,000 years of jewellery art with around 1,700 objects, ranging from ancient oriental gems from the 5th millennium BC to contemporary jewellery works. The collection is largely thanks to the passion and commitment of numerous collectors and donors. Its character and profile were largely determined by the extensive donations of Wilhelm Clemens (1919/20), Elisabeth Treskow (1977) and Rosy Petrine Sieversen (from 1978), which resulted in a focus on jewellery from antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the 19th century and the work of Elisabeth Treskow and her circle. In addition to the systematic expansion of historical jewellery art, the future expansion of the collection will focus in particular on the area of modern and contemporary author's and unique jewellery. In addition, the MAKK has set itself the goal of increasingly reflecting the diversity of our society in its exhibitions and collection profile. This includes a stronger representation of works by female artists and designers. Another focus of the collection profile is on the topic of sustainability and the resource-conserving use of materials. Modern and contemporary jewellery art often reflects innovative approaches in these areas and demonstrates a critical examination of political and social issues.

The expansion of the jewellery collection will be possible in the future thanks to financial support from the museum's funding foundation, which was founded in 2020, and the Overstolzen Society as the museum's patrons, founded in 1888. We also hope that the remarkable tradition of donations and the generous commitment of citizens will continue in the future.

The third presentation is part of a private collection in Cologne featuring a selection of decorative objects from the period between 1770 and 1830, a period that has gone down in art and cultural history as Classicism.

In art history, the term classicism encompasses all art movements that draw inspiration from antiquity. In this sense, since the Renaissance – which, as a “rebirth”, was also a (re)interpretation of antiquity – classicist movements can be found in almost all stylistic periods, but their stylistic forms are always oriented towards the tastes of the respective era, which can also be seen in objects of applied art such as furniture, glass, porcelain, silver, fashion, and jewellery. The extensive jewellery collection of the MAKK vividly presents the wide range of jewellery design in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The theme of ‘classicism’ is to be supplemented by the purely subjective selection of jewellery pieces from a private collection in Cologne presented here.  The focus of the collection was and remains on the formal language, the choice of motifs and the preferred materials and techniques of this period.