The exhibition 'Beauty and the Bead' was held from December 16th 2006 until May 13th 2007 in the Tropenmuseum.

The Tropenmuseum presents the story of the bead. ‘Beauty and the Bead - from Madonna to the Maasai’ reveals the evolution of the bead as an integral part of the history of mankind. ‘Beauty and the Bead’ features beaded costumes from every epoch and all corners of the earth. Among the exhibits are a royal robe from Congo, a parka from the North Pole and a mummy from Ancient Egypt. In addition, a glamorous dress worn by Marilyn Monroe, Madonna’s shoes and haute couture by Versace and John Galliano.

This is the first exhibition ever to focus on beads as a worldwide phenomenon. A tiny object for about 100,000 years the supreme means of personal adornment. ‘Beauty and the Bead’ is above all about people: self-expression and creativity, identity and status, vanity and greed, power and temptation, but also spirituality, technical ingenuity and commerce. The show reveals how beads have brought peoples from different continents into contact and how they influenced each other, with beads serving as a visual language.