Stone-Ideas.com 
L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts, in partnership with France‘s Muséum national d‘Histoire naturelle (MNHN), presents a retrospective dedicated to the collection of the 20th-century French writer Roger Caillois (1913-1978), on show through March 29, 2026.
Driven by an insatiable curiosity, scientific precision and boundless imagination, this master of the French language collected stones with passion and erudition for over 25 years. Today, this invaluable collection, the lion‘s share of which is housed at the Muséum national d‘Histoire naturelle, in large part thanks to the support of L’ÉCOLE counts more than 1000 specimens.
Roger Caillois‘s passion for minerals resulted in writings of an exceptionally poetic nature. From 1959 onwards, he published essays inspired by his collection of “picture stones” including “The Writing of Stones,“ his most renowned work, which was first printed in 1970. He was elected to the Académie Française the following year.
As said on the webpage Goodreads: “The Writing of Stones is a fascinating meditation on the human imagination contemplating the interior of stones. Caillois examines patterns that are revealed by polishing sections of minerals such as agate, jasper, and onyx. He considers the impact these configurations have had upon the human imagination throughout history and he reviews man’s attempt to categorize and explain them.“
The exhibition delves into the writer‘s intimate ties to the mineral world. It includes iconic texts penned by Roger Caillois and nearly 200 minerals from his collection, now part of the Muséum national d‘Histoire naturelle‘s collections.
L’ÉCOLE, the School of Jewelry Arts
Roger Caillois “The Writing of Stones“
