Trésor-en-valise is a traveling exhibition format consisting of periodic appointments dedicated to research on contemporary jewelry and art design.
The project was born from the collaboration between two historical Italian galleries: Galleria Antonella Villanova (Florence), for years engaged in research in the field of jewelry design and contemporary decorative arts, and Galleria Luisa Delle Piane (Milan), a reality of reference for Italian and international, modern and contemporary design.
The image guiding the Trésor-en-valise project is that of a symbolic suitcase that travels across the Italian territory, from Florence to Milan and vice versa and that, landing from time to time, in one or the other city, opens to reveal its “treasure”: a concise and careful selection of works created by the authors respectively represented by the two galleries, in the perspective of a policy of cooperation and mutual hospitality. The title of the project is, not surprisingly, borrowed from that of Marcel Duchamp's famous work, Bôite-en-valise (box in a suitcase) made between 1935 and 1941, before his move to New York. The work takes the form of a rectangular leather case that opens to reveal a portable mini-museum containing 69 tiny replicas and reproductions of almost all the works made by the artist between 1910 and 1937.
Trésor-en-valise, curated by Emanuela Nobile Mino, opens its first event in Milan on the occasion of the Salone del Mobile 2023, and features Helen Britton, one of the most influential designers on the international contemporary jewelry scene represented by Galleria Antonella Villanova. The exhibition presents a selection of Britton's work (recently made and archival jewelry, sculptural objects in cement and Capodimonte porcelain, and works on paper) and is hosted within a satellite space of Galleria Luisa Delle Piane, open to the public for the first time, in conjunction with the Andrea Branzi and Gaetano Pesce exhibitions held in the main spaces of the Milan gallery.

Around the mid-1200s, in his book Livre des métiers, Etienne Boileau defined goldsmithing as “the art of kings,” deeming the intrinsic value of jewelry subordinate to the symbolism it is able to evoke, as artifacts ennobled by the originality of their design and the quality of their workmanship. In this sense, Helen Britton's exhibition for Trésor-en-valise intends to shed light on how these values translate into the author's poetics and take shape in jewelry and sculptural objects that are distinguished by their mastery of execution and the visionary nature of the iconographic apparatus that marks them, drawing indiscriminately from the naturalistic and industrial universe, from popular culture and fairy-tale imagery, from the dreamlike dimension of dreams or nightmares, and from reality. Treated with gracefulness and sensitivity, the themes addressed by Britton - sometimes thorny issues, such as reflection on the environment or the relationship of human beings with the animal world - are conveyed with the lightness of the empathetic relationship that the author aims to establish with the future user of her works, particularly her jewelry. The evocation of symbolic images, which seem to translate into contemporary metropolitan language the rituality of indigenous cultures, activates an emotional involvement that infuses the jewelry with the magical charge of apotropaic, dynamic, sometimes sonorous objects, while retaining the familiar and joyful aspect of certain ancient rattlesnake toys. A kind of call, to attention and presence, to humanity and eloquence of gesture. Within its creative and design motion, Britton explains, space is also given to chance. Chance governs in part the construction of her jewelry, the juxtaposition of certain forms that, in some way, already belong to our imagination as archetypal images. The same freedom of expression is granted to the materials used: "Materials leave a trail in space, time and history. It is up to the author [and his humanity] to add something of his own to this already written history, and to let the materials become ornaments to be worn, appreciated, exchanged and blessed, for what they represent and for the metaphor they embody."