Van Cleef & Arpels is opening a new exhibition on rubies this month at Les Jardins Secrets, the jewellery maison’s hidden sanctuary-slash-exhibition space at the Raffles Hotel. This will be the second exhibition at the space in Singapore, after it debuted earlier this year with a show titled Precious Nature that explored how the maison interprets and imbues motifs from the natural world with beauty and wonder. The new exhibition is simply titled “Ruby”, and its name is fairly self-explanatory.
Instead of centring on finished jewellery designs by Van Cleef & Arpels with a theme, Ruby simultaneously expands and narrows the scope to focus on one type of coloured gemstone itself. This will be the first exhibition at Les Jardins Secrets in Singapore to be presented by L’École, the school of jewellery arts founded with the support of Van Cleef & Arpels. According to Olivier Segura, the managing director of L’École’s Asia Pacific arm, the school was founded out of a desire to invite a general public to discover and learn about the world of jewellery—from its art historical side, to the artisanal crafts and even the mineral, gemological sides.
Part of the “Discover the Gemstones” series, Ruby will immerse visitors on a journey from rough, barely revealed stones, to the proud, gleaming form of cut and polished gems that adorn high jewellery creations. In the exhibition, for example, are a number of ruby samples from deposits and mines around the world that are st.