Step into a world of brilliance and beauty with Radiance and Reverie, a dazzling exhibition featuring more than 150 extraordinary jewels from the private collection of famed designer and jeweler to the stars Neil Lane. Best known for his presence on the red carpet and ABC’s The Bachelor, Lane has spent decades amassing one of the most important historic jewelry collections in the United States. Now, for the first time, this remarkable collection comes to light in an exhibition that celebrates jewelry as both art and cultural artifact.
Spanning nearly a century of design—from the opulence of nineteenth-century revival styles to the elegance of Hollywood’s golden age—Radiance and Reverie invites visitors to see jewelry in a new light: not only as adornment, but as miniature sculptures that reflect shifting tastes, social change, and artistic innovation. Featuring iconic names such as Suzanne Belperron, Cartier, Boucheron, Castellani, Louis C. Tiffany, and Tiffany & Co., the exhibition reveals the story of modern jewelry through three distinct chapters:
Paris: The World Stage showcases revival styles that captured imaginations at nineteenth-century world’s fairs.
New York: An American Jewelry House focuses on the legacy of Tiffany & Co. and Louis C. Tiffany and the rise of American design.
Hollywood: Glamour traces the star-studded journey of jewels worn by legends like Mae West and Joan Crawford and revived on today’s red carpets.
Historic photographs, period costume, and red-carpet footage complement the jewelry on view, offering a richly immersive experience.
Organized by the Toledo Museum of Art, Radiance and Reverie: Jewels from the Collection of Neil Lane is co-curated by Diane Wright, Senior Curator of Glass and Contemporary Craft at the Toledo Museum of Art, and Emily Stoehrer, Rita J. Kaplan and Susan B. Kaplan Senior Curator of Jewelry at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. A richly illustrated catalogue, copublished with Rizzoli Electa, offers new scholarship on the jewelry and designers represented, accompanied by an in-depth interview with Neil Lane.
