The jewellery collection was created in 1967 and the jewels of Anton Cepka were the first acquisitions. Currently, the collection contains extensive representative sets of jewels from this world renowned jeweller and through individual works it captures his entire creative development. Cepka was not only an excellent jeweller, he also created kinetic objects. His name is also connected with the founding of the jewellery studio at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, which later educated many Slovak artists, whose work is already represented in the SNG collections. Today this collection can be proud of its unique items, which, along with the Slovak artists, contains the works of jewellers from the Czech Republic, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Great Britain, Denmark and Lithuania. These works were gradually acquired by purchases from the studios of jewellers, exhibition events as well as from symposiums of jewellers, particularly related to purchases from foreign artists. The jewels by Gijs Bakker, Vratislav K. Novák and Josef Symon are the most valuable. Today the SNG Collection of Art Jewellery has over 300 artefacts. It is predominantly constituted by jewels from metal, particularly silver, followed by glass and ceramic jewels, jewels made of textile, paper, leather and wood, as well as a small collection of enamel jewels. Alina Ferdinandy, Erna Masarovičová, Dušan Králik, Jozef Jankovič, sculptors from Slovakia, who in a certain phase of their creative development worked with jewels, are represented along with the unique jewel collection of A. Cepka. The jewels by glass artists Ľubomír Arzt, Askold Žáček, Pavol Hlôška, Milan Gašpar, Miloš Balgavý junior and others, who were inspired by Václav Cigler, are unique. His jewels, like those of Ľubomír Blecha, the solitary artist of Slovak glass work, are also represented in this collection. The work of jewellers – specialists is represented by the items by Peter Mišík, Milan Greguš and Imrich Svitana. Colourful jewels by Jana Cepková, textile jewels by Silvia Fedorová and ceramic jewels by Imrich Vanek form an interesting collection. New trends and materials as well as a re-evaluation of the classical function of jewellery are represented in this collection by the works by Karol Pichler, Anna Daučíková, Karol Weisslechner and Aleš Votava. The jewels of Jan Machatová, Peter Janík, Martina Mináriková and Betty K. Majerníková make up the other acquisitions of this collection. The Slovak National Gallery’s goal oriented collecting, acquisition and exhibition activities and professional processing not only documented the jewellery oeuvre in Slovakia but also inspired its development.

Curator of the Jewellery Collection: Viera Kleinová