De verloren juwelen van koningin Louise-Marie d'Orléans

As a jewellery artist and art historian, Charlotte Vanhoubroeck (°1991, Ghent), makes it her mission to bring fading heritage back to life in the contemporary art landscape. For example, as part of a doctoral research project, She focused on the lost sentimental jewellery of Louise-Marie d'Orléans, first queen of Belgium. These jewels (such as miniature portraits, engraved messages, locks of hair, etc.) harboured biographical information about the queen and her emotional side never explored before. The jewels were lost so they can only be studied in archival descriptions. They were explored and recreated based on both art historical and artistic research. This generates new objects that depict Louise’s sensitivities in a completely new way.

The jury on The lost jewels of Queen Louise-Marie d'Orléans:

A traditional and classic craft - silversmithing - is approached from an extremely personal perspective here. Detailed workbooks provide a good idea of the creative process and the designer’s world. This leads to an elaborate collection of jewellery: delicate and radical at the same time. Jewellery that shouldn’t actually exist tells its own story. It is a coherent collection and the visuals are mesmerising.  It whisks you away to an illustrious past, but separate from this context, the jewellery seems trendy, cool and innovative. Or how the past inspires the future...

What does this award mean to you?

A Henry van de Velde Award is a delight and a joy. It serves as recognition that allows me to look back with satisfaction on the artistic journey I have been privileged to follow in recent years. Moreover, this award has motivated me to start working on new projects with renewed energy and enthusiasm. 

Overall, this award underlines that artistic research practices, in which theoretical reflection and artistic practice go hand in hand, are valuable and gaining attention. And it's about time.

What makes your project so special?

In recent years, I have been researching and recreating the lost sentimental jewels of Queen Louise-Marie d'Orléans. The pieces once concealed personal information about this forgotten queen. I used archival research and artistic interventions to unlock this information in new objects. This puts Louise back in the spotlight.

Apart from Louise’s story, my artistic approach shows that, besides (art) historians, artists can also work with incomplete archival material and a lost object in a meaningful way. The artist has the freedom to harness the imagination and rediscover relevant stories using their own idiosyncratic method. Thus, through the arts, we can explore and experience history in new ways.

Do you have any further plans for this project?

This project is very much alive at the moment. Louise’s new jewellery has been travelling the world for years, from one exhibition to another. By the end of 2026, all these pieces will be exhibited as a collection at the DIVA Museum in Antwerp. A book is also currently in the pipeline, and recounts Louise’s story through her lost jewellery and the information these jewels once held.

I am also working on a preliminary study of a new artistic project. I can’t say much about it right now, but what I can say is that this research also starts from a series of missing/unwearable/invisible - and artistically inspiring - jewellery.