Gages d'Amitié: Tokens of Friendship and Love
21-22 Galerie de Montpensier
Jardin du Palais-Royal
75001 Paris May 7 - July 31, 2026 Opening on Wednesday May 6, 2026. 6pm to 8pm
RSVP requires at info@lesenluminures.com
“You might just as well take the sun out of the sky as friendship from life; for the immortal gods have given us nothing better or more delightful.” Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC), Laelius De Amicitia
Our latest exhibition sets out to explore and illustrate how themes of friendship and love emerged as pertinent and as important during the Middle Ages and Renaissance as we find them today. Drawing together a tightly-curated selection of multi-disciplinary artworks, we consider how these manuscripts, single leaves, jewelry, and works of art bear witness to different forms of “gages d’amitié.”
Highlights include a fine group of Album Amicorum. The genre of Album Amicorum (friendship or autograph book), in which friends and associates contributed poems, drawings, sayings, and good wishes, offers us glimpses into social networking in earlier centuries, long before social media. Amongst the jewelry, posy rings have a particular focus. From the fifteenth century onward, such rings were exchanged between lovers, friends, and family members expressing affection, friendship and faith. Concealed inscriptions inside the hoop contained personal messages known only to the giver and recipient and they enjoyed great popularity in England, especially as betrothal or wedding rings.
Varaždin, Ofen, Prague, Brandeis, and Verona, 1810-1840 (dated)
