Didier Ltd, founded by Didier and Martine Haspeslagh, occupies a special niche amongst art and design galleries by specialising in jewels created by modern artists, which have been acquired from the secondary art market. With the benefit of hindsight, the gallery is able to present the finest examples of an artist’s work, where the artistry, design and craftsmanship of the jewel is paramount over its intrinsic value. These jewels range from the most intimate expressions of their art, made as private gifts for their loved ones, to pieces created in editions, as a way to disseminate their art to the widest possible public outside the confines of a museum or art gallery. Jewellery by artists is a growing collecting field with museums starting to exhibit jewels alongside other works of art. Didier Ltd has been very active in loaning jewels to these exhibitions as well as promoting the subject at international art and design fairs and through its gallery catalogues.

For TEFAF Maastricht 2026 the gallery will focus on how artists approach working with gold, the most noble of metals, which has led to the creation of modern and innovative jewels that follow their artistic principals albeit in a miniature form. These jewels display a variety of ancient techniques including cuttlefish-bone and lost-wax casting, repoussé, and enamelling, and more modern ones like galvanisation and compression whether crafted by the artist themselves or with the help of goldsmiths. Comprising around 150 works, these gold pieces will include works by the modern masters including Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, and André Derain produced by François Hugo in Aix-en-Provenance in small editions, while those of the artists of the Rome School (eg. Afro and Mirko Basaldella, Giuseppe Uncini, and Franco Cannilla) made in the workshop of Mario Masenza are unique. The jewels by George Braque were made in colaboration with Heger de Lowenfeld, whom he referred to as “the extension of my hands”, and those of Salvador Dalí were initially made by Carlos Alemany in New York. GianCarlo Montebello in Milan worked with an international stable of over 50 artists from Man Ray to Lucio Fontana, together with his wife Theresa Pomodoro, sister of Arnaldo and Gio’ Pomdoro who both started their careers as jewellers. There are many links between all these artists, editors and goldsmiths, indeed, probably no more than three degrees of separation between any of them.

Lucio Fontana (1899-1968)
Concetto spaziale taglio, c. 1960-1962
18ct gold bangle designed as an ovoid, incised with a slash at a slight angle, set on a curved band.
Unique within a series. Scratched signature, fontana, stamped 750.
H. 8.6 cm, into D. 6 x 5.2 cm, void 3.4 x 4.8 x 3.4 cm.
Ex. Roberto and Paola Fallani. Fontana Foundation no. 4552/1