A masterpiece by Fouquet and Mucha for Pforzheim's Jewellery Museum. Ceremonial handover by Werner Wild Foundation

We are deeply grateful to the Werner Wild Foundation for its generous donation, said Mayor Tobias Volle. The chaîne de corsage is one of the highlights of the three-year collaboration between the French jeweller, renowned for his ingenuity and high-quality craftsmanship, and the Czech painter and graphic artist, who played a decisive role in shaping the Art Nouveau aesthetic. It is a great pleasure to now have this remarkable piece of jewellery in our collection, said museum director Friederike Zobel, expressing her gratitude.
 
The Chaîne de corsage, approximately 1.30 metres long, consists of eleven segments, each crafted differently and set with rubies, sapphires and emeralds. Diamonds and baroque pearls are accentuated by geometric motifs in window enamel – similar to cell enamel, but without a base and therefore translucent. At a time when it was customary to set gemstones in traditional ways, Fouquet and Mucha took a different approach. They were convinced that the beauty of a piece of jewellery depended on its form. Between 1899 and 1901, Mucha drew elaborate designs that were to be realised in Fouquet’s Parisian workshop. A spectacular series of these pieces formed the centrepiece of Fouquet’s presentation at the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris, for which the jeweller was awarded a gold medal. This Chaîne de corsage is one of the few surviving pieces. It was previously on display at the Jewellery Museum as part of the exhibition Must-sees – Jewellery in the Arts, held to mark Pforzheim’s 250th anniversary as the City of Gold in 2017. At that time, it was on loan from Epoque Fine Jewels in Belgium. The Werner Wild Foundation has now acquired it from there for the museum’s collection.
 
At the ceremonial handover, Christianne Weber-Stöber, former director of the German Goldsmiths’ House in Hanau, spoke about the extraordinary synergy between the two Art Nouveau jewellery artists. Markus Stange from the Karlsruhe University of Music provided musical accompaniment on the piano, performing miniatures by Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy from the period in which the piece of jewellery was created. Also present were the donor’s widow, Erika Wild, as well as the foundation’s board of trustees, Hans-Heiner Bouley and Carsten von Zepelin.