RIVER NORTH — The Richard H. Driehaus Museum has a new exhibit that really shines.
"Maker & Muse" features more than 250 pieces of jewelry handcrafted here and abroad between the Victorian era and World War I. The exhibit on the finely detailed style now known as art jewelry particularly focuses on pieces inspired and often made by women during the last century's suffrage movement.
"We want to look at women as makers and muses," Driehaus Museum Executive Director Lise Dubé-Scherr said.
The handwrought, ornate pieces largely bucked against the rapid industrialization of the Western world during the early 20th Century, Dubé-Scherr said. The exhibit looks at art jewelry over time, from the beginning of the Arts and Crafts movement in Great Britain, to the nature-inspired Art Nouveau form emerging out of France, to the Jugendstil of Germany and Austria and the jewelers of post-fire Chicago. The exhibit also draws from Driehaus' collection of 1,500 pieces made by Louis Comfort Tiffany.
Other prominent jewelers featured include Charlotte Newman, the first known woman jeweler, and Clara Barck Welles of Chicago's famed Kalo Shop. Dubé-Scherr declined to disclose the total value of the exhibited pieces.
"Maker & Muse" will run through until Jan. 3, 2016, and the museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Admission is free for museum members, and general admission is $20 for adults, $12.50 for seniors, and $10 for students and children aged six to 12 years old.
The decorate arts museum, 40 E. Erie St., was founded by Chicago-based fund manager and philanthropist Richard H. Driehaus in 2003.
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