Gold burns the retina, the senses and the words. Hana Al Banna-Chidiac, the exhibition of the exhibition “Au Fil de l’Or”, is lyrical by guiding us from one room to another at the Branly museum, among families in number. “We’re going to see very, very beautiful things,” said a young woman to her two toddlers to motivate them. The exhibition is almost endless – to lose the thread sometimes -, but dresses, caftans, boleos, vests, coats embroidered with gold wire are linked like a parade of the thousand and one nights.
Hanna al Banna-Chidiac, a great specialist in clothing in the East, wanted to work as a historian and an archaeologist as much as a goldsmith from one century to another. “It was by walking along the rivers that the man of prehistory discovered these yellow grains with very lively brilliance. It was enough for him to pick up a handful of alluvial sand in the hollow of his hand and take, at the tips of their fingers, these fine plots of gold.