Collectors Daniel and Serga Nadler have assembled a unique collection of silver jewelry from around the world, including massive neck ornaments, anklets, bracelets, complex earrings, and a wide variety of brooches and fibulae. Portable Treasuries: Silver Jewelry from the Nadler Collection, on view from February 16 to August 8, 2010, showcases selections from the Nadler Collection. The exhibition will present approximately 150 works, from North Africa, the Indian Subcontinent, and the hill tribes of Southeast Asia. This marks the inaugural exhibition of the Nadler Collection, which was generously donated as a promised gift to the Museum of Arts and Design. The jewelry is beautifully crafted, and sadly is in diminishing supply; over the years, many works have been melted down for their silver.

"We started collecting silver jewelry as a lark, and over the years this has grown into a passion," states Daniel Nadler. "For centuries the jewelry a woman wore was a display of her family's wealth and status. It also represented concrete value, since it could be pawned or sold in lean times. In many cultures, if a woman was rejected by her husband, her apparel including jewelry provided her alimony or compensation. To Serga and me, the attraction of these pieces, created by anonymous craftsmen, is the artistic merit of their works."

Portable Treasuries: Silver Jewelry from the Nadler Collection is made possible, in part, through the generosity of the Collectors Circle, a leadership Museum support group.

CuratorsDorothy Globus, Curator, and Laura Stern, Assistant Curator