Recreating Gesture Iron Age Gold Necklace Exhibition 2026

Recreating Gesture: Crafting a Gold Necklace from the Iron Age has arrived in Dubai, on show at L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts in Dubai Design District from 5 November 2026 to 24 April 2027. Supported by Van Cleef & Arpels, the exhibition follows a master goldsmith’s attempt to understand a 2,000-year-old Celtic gold torque by making it again, by hand, the way its original makers might have done.

A Celtic torque found in Montans in 1843

The starting point is a torque, a rigid gold neck collar, discovered in 1843 at Montans in the Tarn region of southern France. It dates from the Second Iron Age, the period between roughly 450 and 25 BC, and it is the kind of object that raises more questions than it answers: how was the gold worked, with which tools, and in what order were the decorative forms made?

Rather than answering those questions only from the surviving piece, the project turned to experimental archaeology, which means reproducing an object to understand the skills and techniques of the period in which it was made.

Antoine Legouy and the experiment

The replica at the heart of the exhibition was made by Antoine Legouy, a goldsmith and master chaser who holds the title Meilleur Ouvrier de France. He worked alongside archaeologists and Gregory Weinstock, Van Cleef & Arpels’ Director of High Jewelry Métiers, to recreate the torque’s delicate forms. His aim was to approach the challenge from the Celts’ point of view and, in his words, “to follow in their footsteps”, rediscovering techniques that had been forgotten.

Manual techniques were central to the work, which is why the exhibition focuses as much on gesture as on the finished necklace. The scientific side drew on the Centre Archéologique de Montans, the Musée d’Archéologie Nationale in Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Barbara Armbruster of the CNRS. The exhibition is curated by Emmanuelle Amiot, with Céline Gaslain as scientific advisor.

From Paris to Dubai Design District

Recreating Gesture first opened in Paris in summer 2025 at the Hôtel de Mercy-Argenteau before appearing in Lyon in November 2025 as part of Van Cleef & Arpels’ “de Mains en mains” programme on jewellery craftsmanship. It has since travelled to Seoul and Shanghai, and the Dubai showing runs for almost six months.

In Dubai you will find it on the ground floor of Building 10 in d3, where L’ÉCOLE Middle East has its campus. The exhibition is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 7pm and is closed on Sundays and Mondays. Entry is free, but visits must be reserved through L’ÉCOLE’s booking page. See our L’ÉCOLE Middle East venue page for other events held there.

Talks, workshops and an open house

L’ÉCOLE has built a programme around the exhibition, booked separately from the exhibition visit:

• Open House Day on 7 November 2026
• Gold from Atom to Workshop, an online talk on 10 November 2026
• Forged Through Time, Jewels & Journeys, a workshop
• Voice of Jewels, the school’s podcast, now in its third season

The talk and workshop suit visitors who want to go deeper into how gold behaves and how jewellery has been made across the centuries.

Who will enjoy it

This is a focused, intimate exhibition built around a single object and the story of its remaking, so it rewards jewellery lovers, design and craft students, and anyone curious about archaeology. It pairs naturally with other cultural visits in the city. For more, browse our art and culture events, our guide to things to do in Dubai and what is on in November. If you enjoy ideas-led events, the Water as a Common Ground Symposium at Jameel Arts Centre is another thoughtful choice this month.