Author, historian and curator Beatriz Chadour-Sampson offers a tour of the Victoria & Albert Museum’s outstanding collection, which is the basis of the institution’s new online courses.
After a successful first run in 2023 and a sold-out second edition set to commence next week, London’s Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) is offering a new on-demand course in its “A History of Jewellery: Bedazzled” series.
Beatriz Chadour-Sampson — a celebrated international jewelry historian — wrote the program’s curriculum and teaches the course. In the latest episode of the Jewelry Connoisseur Podcast, she takes us on a journey through centuries of ornamental history, using the V&A study collection as her touchstone.
Ranging from medieval times to contemporary designs, the collection display is organized chronologically up to the World War II period, she notes; after that, the museum groups the pieces by material, such as plastic or brass jewels. The “Bedazzled” course follows the collection’s highlights and puts them in their social and economic contexts, moving through the Middle Ages, the Baroque period, the Renaissance, the Art Nouveau era, and so on through today. It features items from other museums as well, Chadour-Sampson adds.
When the program’s second installment — which starts on February 22 — sold out, the V&A decided to introduce an on-demand course that launches on April 10. Unlike the previous two, which were designed as interactive live sessions with Chadour-Sampson and the V&A’s jewelry curators, the April edition will let jewelry lovers learn at their own pace with 12 hours of recorded online lessons. Registration for the new program is now open.
Chadour-Sampson was consultant curator for the redesign of the V&A’s William and Judith Bollinger Jewellery Gallery, and was guest curator of the museum’s “Pearls” exhibition in 2014. Today, she is the curator of the Alice and Louis Koch Collection, now in the Swiss National Museum.
This episode — along with the two previous seasons — is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube.
The Jewelry Connoisseur Podcast is hosted by Rapaport Editor in Chief Sonia Esther Soltani, and produced and edited by Vanina Pikholc.
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