The Exhibition “Small Size, Great Aesthetics: A Hundred and One Rings (kleine dinge hundertundein ring)” will be on view at the Schmuckmuseum in Pforzheim Germany from March 8-June 9, 2013. Albeit small, rings are true works of art in their own right, displaying a multitude of shapes and designs and serving disparate purposes: as wedding bands or friendship rings, as a sign of mourning or a symbol of power and status. Some are primarily deco-rative, while others also have a more profound significance. Marking various important occasions in life, a person’s rings can span the stages of an entire lifetime. Worn in all epochs and eras, rings alone suffice to tell the history of jewelry. Rings of love, for example, have been known as a symbol of close ties and affection for three thousand years. In the days of classical antiquity, a ring combined with a key bit signified a wife’s authority to represent her husband in matters related to the conjugal household, and in the Renaissance period, love and togetherness were symbolized by rings featuring entwined hands. The exhibition will give an impressive overview of the huge diversity of these small-format works of art.

A major exhibition of Newcomb College Art Pottery is opening in New Orleans with a weekend celebration September 21-22. The weekend will feature leading scholars and collectors, guided gallery tours and food and wine events. “The Palm, the Pine and the Cypress: Newcomb Pottery of New Orleans” is a yearlong show at Madame John’s Legacy in the French Quarter. The show will display more than 50 glazed ceramics paired with archival photographs of Newcomb potters at work from the late 1890s through the 1940s. This is the first Louisiana State Museum exhibition conducted at Madame John’s Legacy since Hurricane Katrina, marking its return as a showcase for Louisiana decorative arts. Madame John’s Legacy is located at 632 Dumaine Street, New Orleans, LA. For information, call 504-429-3939 or visit www.friendsofthecabildo.org.

The exhibition “Salvaging the Past: Georges Hoentschel and French Decorative Arts from The Metropolitan Museum of Art” will be on view from April 4-August 11, 2013 at the Bard Graduate Center (BGC). The exhibit marks the fourth in a series of collaborations between the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the BGC and provides the first comprehensive examination of Georges Hoentschel.

A significant figure in the history of collecting, Hoentschel was an enterprising and successful decorator during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who was instrumental in exporting French taste abroad. His career flourished during a period in history when France witnessed a great scientific, industrial and social transformation and the newly moneyed bourgeoisie adopted a lifestyle based on an aristocratic model. As director of the Parisian decorating firm Maison Leys, Hoentschel catered to these affluent clients, creating for them interiors in historic French styles. Today, Hoentschel is remembered for having created the interiors in art nouveau style for the Union Centrale des Arts Deocratifs pavilion at the Paris Exposition Universelle 1900. Hoentschel was also a renowned ceramicist. Many of his works were exhibited at the 1900 Exposition.

Hoentschel’s remarkable but little known collection entered the Metropolitan Museum as a gift of J. Pierpont Morgan in the early twentieth century and includes more than 200 objects of primarily medieval art and French eighteenth century paneling, furniture, metalwork, textiles, paintings and sculptures as well as late nineteenth century art pottery, most of which have rarely been viewed since the 1950s.

“Salvaging the Past: Georges Hoentschel and French Deocrative Arts from the Metropolitan Museum of Art” is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue edited by Danielle Kisluk-Grosheide, Deborah L. Krohn and Ulrich Leben. Through scholarly essays, early documentary photographs, and images of newly conserved works, the book considers various aspects of Hoentschel’s life in Parisian social and artistic circles and his career as a successful businessman, ceramist, and designer. New research documents many of Hoentschel’s clients and commissions placing him and his collection in a larger social and historical context. Extensive research and discoveries made during conservation treatments for this exhibition are outlined in entries about the individual objects.

“Bijoux parisiens: French Jewelry from the Petit Palais, Paris” will be on view at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens in Memphis, Tennessee from April 28 – July 21, 2013. Drawing upon the extensive collection of fine jewelry, paintings and fashion prints from the Petit Palais in Paris, the exhibition tells the dazzling story of French jewelry from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. On view are the iconic and inimitable jewels from the famous French jewelry houses of Falize, Boucheron, Lalique, Cartier and others. Fusing fashion, art and art history, “Bijoux parisiens” features nearly seventy works of jewelry and over 200 design paintings, fashion prints and photographs. The exhibition is accompanied by a full-color, hardcover catalogue by Gilles Chazal and Martine Chazal of the Petit Palais, with an introduction by Dixon director Kevin Sharp. For more information about “Bijoux parisiens: French Jewelry from the Petit Palais, Paris,” call (901)761-5250 or visit http://www.dixon.org/.