Exhibition: The Thing of Mine I have Loved the Best: Meaningful Jewels, Les Enluminures New York, April 5 to 20, 2018

The engaging title “The thing of mine I have loved the best” comes from the medieval will of a English duchess who bequeaths a reliquary jewel to her son. It expresses the sentiment that jewels appealed (then, as well as now) to the truest and strongest emotions. “I have bought these pieces one by one over a period of fifteen years (and put them aside with this project in mind), and to my knowledge no such collection has been assembled, studied, and exhibited in modern times,” states Founder and President of Les Enluminures Sandra Hindman. She goes on to say “Not at all unlike the medieval manuscripts I also present, they are some of the most intimate of art objects from the Middle Ages.”