Jewelry Museums

Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim (Pforzheim Jewellery Museum)

Pforzheim, Germany

Devoted to the history of jewellery, this is the only museum of its kind worldwide. Some 2000 exhibits, including an extensive ring collection, reveal the vast diversity of jewellery over 5,000 years. The collection features treasures from Greco-Roman antiquity, the Renaissance and Jugendstil / Art Nouveau as well as contemporary art jewellery. Other unique components to the collection include non-western jewellery and 17th-19th century pocket watches.

 

 

 World Jewelry Museum

Seoul, South Korea

Founded in 2004, this is one of the few museums in the world devoted entirely to jewellery, especially one that houses such ethnically diverse pieces. Presenting 1000 pieces of jewellery from Africa, Asia, Central Asia, Europe, and Pre-Columbian works, the nine exhibition galleries highlight the collection based on materials and function.

 

 

 

Museo de las Alhajas en la Vía de la Plata (Museum of Jewellery in the Silver Way)
La Bañeza (León) – Spain

The Museum of Jewellery in the Silver Way, opened in 2011, has a collection of more than 3,000 items of 19th century Spanish traditional costumes and 16th-18th century jewelery from the Silver Way and the province of Leon. This museum contains perhaps the best collection of traditional civil jewellery in Spain, an art almost lost because almost all the pieces that constituted it have disappeared over the centuries. Highlights include large silver necklaces called ‘collaradas,’ jewelerly made of Asturian jet, and Manila shawls with little heads made of ivory or nacre. The permanent exhibition consist of seven rooms that show traditional costumes of Childhood, Youth,  Adults, and Jewellery.

 

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The website for ASJRA (Association for the Study of Jewelry and Related Arts) also has a pretty thorough guide for museums and exhibitions related to jewelry and gems