The Sentimental Jewellery of Louise-Marie d’Orléans: An Artistic Reactivation of Material Memories

Over the past few years, jewelry artist and art historian Charlotte Vanhoubroeck investigated the lost sentimental jewelry of Louise-Marie d’Orléans, first queen of Belgium (1812–1850), with the support of the Research Foundation Flanders. These jewelry pieces were worn to preserve memories, and thus once enclosed fragments of Louise’s intimate world. Based on (art) historical research and artistic reflection, Vanhoubroeck reactivated a selection of Louise’s sentimental jewelry from a contemporary point of view. In her research, she moved between the real and the imaginary, between history and the present, between Louise and herself. Through word, image, and object, Vanhoubroeck constructed an alternative version of the myth of Louise-Marie d’Orléans. In this way, this almost forgotten queen is reintroduced to the public.