Institutional History
The Association “Amici del Museo dell’Arte Orafa Valenza” was founded in 1988, with the purpose of defending our goldsmith culture thanks to a collection of materials pertinent with jewellery production. It was also aimed at the promotion of the study of companies and craftsmen that contributed to increase  the consideration and manufacturing success of the  city goldsmith district. The Association wants to promote the foundation of  Museo dell’Arte Orafa and to support  initiatives, research, and development of activities connected with it.

Since the beginning, great attention has been given to the collaboration with Public Entities and Schools (especially For.Al, the most important goldsmith school in Valenza), public and private Institutions, gold Companies. They support the education of young people and, at the same time, organize exhibitions as proof of  the richness of our gold working tradition. During these decades the Association “Amici del Museo dell’Arte Orafa Valenza” collected tools, prototypes, machines for the treatment of metals, and gems that are able to tell gold working evolution in the last two hundred years thanks to associates’ donations and private ones. The documentary collections (drawings, sketches, pictures, catalogues, books, accounting administration notebooks and agenda, manufacturing catalogues) are very interesting; they give information about the town gold working evolution, allowing a unique historical reconstruction in comparison with national and international overview.

This extraordinary collection, composed of paper documents and objects, in 2016 reached 110 donations; it has been catalogued and inventoried thanks to the devoted commitment of its associates, especially of its chairperson, Professor  Maria Grazia Molina, jewel and goldsmith art historian, who has taken  care of  all the many activities of the Association since 1988. The Association organized annual exhibitions on the occasion of “Giornata Amici dei Musei” up to 2013; among the most memorable events there is the exhibition “Oro e lavoro” (1994), one in a kind for the presence of a wide section dedicated to work machines, the show dedicated to Giuseppe Gillio in 1997 and the collaboration for the exhibition “Valenza e l’arte del gioiello”, in 2014. As a result the Association published the catalogues “Oro e lavoro – Cento anni d’oreficeria in Valenza” and “Giuseppe Gillio – artista orafo”. Many objects have been lent to the Museums in the surrounding area (like Museo Civico di Novi Ligure), and to shows in Italy and abroad (like Parma, Antwerp, Dresden, Leipzig and Beirut).

Here you can download the PDF of the inventory.

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