Numismatists will fall out of their chairs.
What?
Feathers, beads, shells or even iron bars?
And more stones, teeth, salt, amber, carnelian, mother-of-pearl or fabrics?
All this in addition to gold and silver?
This is something that never appears in their collections.
And yet: the some two hundred objects installed at the Hôtel de la Monnaie in Paris, a place just opposite the Louvre where coins and medals have been minted since the 11th century, are all supports that have, throughout the world, once or in the past, materialized the exchanges.
To discover
Discover the “Best of the Goncourt Prize” collection
Kuba velvet from Zaire, heavy bracelets from Côte d'Ivoire, embroidered textiles from Timor, dazzling Polynesian feather rolls...
"We condescendingly called them paleo-money
," laments Bérénice Geoffroy-Schneiter.
This non-Western jewelery and adornment specialist with a very insightful gaze and who knows how to play with borders like chapels underlines, on the contrary, their sophistication, their polysemy.
And also…
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