Detailed description:

At the end of last year, the Museum of the Bohemian Paradise in Turnov managed to obtain from the United States an Art Nouveau pendant with precious stones, made in the Turnov jewellery school between 1909-14. The author of the design was the professor and later headmaster of the school, the versatile Antonín Karč (1879-1952), an excellent chandler, sculptor, designer and painter. With his design work, he significantly directed the form of jewellery and jewels in the Art Nouveau and subsequent Art Deco style, for which the Turnov school won medals and great prizes at important interwar European and world exhibitions. The museum's jewellery room, where visitors can see a selection from the historical collection of the Turnov school, also contains a number of brooches, necklaces and decorative objects designed by Karč, but others remain in the school and museum vaults due to lack of exhibition space. The story of the pendant, which travelled back to its place of origin via the USA, attracted extraordinary media attention and we promised the public that they would be able to see it "live" in the spring of 2022. On that occasion, the curator of the jewellery collection, PhDr. Miroslav Cogan, in cooperation with the reinstallation of the jewellery shop, in which we would like to commemorate the designer's work and contribution to the Turnov school and the Czech artistic craft in the year of the 70th anniversary of Karč's death with an expanded collection of artefacts made according to his designs. In addition to the aforementioned curtain, we will exhibit other, equally valuable objects that have so far only been seen by the public on rare occasions or have not been exhibited at all.