René Lalique

A photograph of a similar brooch dated to 1904 with identical glass panels, an emerald-cut white sapphire and a slightly different frame design is illustrated in French Jewelry of the Nineteenth Century, by Henri Vever on page 1,266 and in René Lalique: Schmuck und Objets d'art 1890-1910, by Sigrid Barten on page 421.

It is difficult to overstate the influence René Lalique has had on jewelry design and the respect with which it is regarded as an art form. When he began creating his own jewelry in fin de siècle Paris, prominent contemporaries from the Art Nouveau movement such as Émile Gallé were proposing that the decorative arts be held equal in stature and validity to the fine arts. By the time Lalique largely abandoned jewelry design to concentrate on his work in glass in 1912 he was heralded by many as a visionary who had demonstrated this equality to an international audience. Contemporary jeweler and industry historian Henri Vever wrote, “Every single piece sent by Lalique to the Salons took on the significance of an artistic event; art critics celebrated his talent, his genius even, and compared him to the greatest artists of all time.” French museums began collecting Lalique’s jewels and displaying them alongside paintings and sculpture, a radical novelty for the time.

Born in Ay in 1860 but raised mostly in Paris, Lalique was profoundly influenced by his childhood visits to the countryside where he developed a deep aesthetic appreciation for natural forms. He was apprenticed to the jeweler Louis Aucoc at the age of sixteen and went on to study design at Sydenham College in London before returning to Paris and working as a freelance jewelry designer, selling his drawings to jewelers who fabricated the designs in their own workshops. His highly naturalistic designs met with increasing success in the houses of some of the great French jewelers, but he found himself frustrated in his efforts to persuade his clients to take on some of his more innovative creations. In 1886 Lalique took over the workshop of Jules Destape and was free for the first time to take full control of the design and manufacture of his own jewelry under his own name. 

Over the subsequent years René Lalique worked assiduously to develop the techniques and idiosyncratic design vocabulary for which he was to become so famous. This process required making sometimes ruthless critical assessments of his own work. He later reflected, “I tried hard to renounce everything I had accomplished before…determined to create something completely new.” The style that emerged was based on nature but radically inventive. He incorporated elements of the recent revival of interest in Renaissance jewels, particularly the use of human figures, three-dimensional modeling and colorful enamels and added a soupçon of the Japanese-inflected aesthetic that was becoming increasingly influential at the time. 

Lalique used enamel to impart his creations with subtle and beautiful colors. He established his own enamel workshop under Eugène Feuillâtre and experimented with basse taille, en ronde bosse and plique à jour enamel. Lot 56, an elegant lorgnette, combines opaque and translucent basse taille enamel with central plique à jour panels to great effect. His preferred motifs were plants, animals and human figures. Peacocks were a recurrent theme, particularly in his work from the 1890s. Lot 58, a gold and enamel sautoir, depicts a pair of opposed peacocks decorated with multicolored enamel suspended from a chain featuring enamel peacock feather links. The original design drawing for this piece survives in Lalique’s archives. The center of the pendant, which might traditionally be occupied by a jewel, is rendered entirely in enamel, reflecting Lalique’s tendency to prioritize artistry over the use of impressive gemstones. Historian Henri Clouzot wrote of Lalique’s jewelry in 1933, “The intrinsic value of the materials was eclipsed by the excellence of artistic craftsmanship and the effort of creative imagination.” It was Lalique’s interest in creating increasingly three-dimensional effects in enamel that may have initially led him to begin working in glass and incorporating it into his jewelry.

Lalique’s jewels have a highly sculptural quality that may reflect the influence of his father-in-law August Ledru, who was employed in the studio of Auguste Rodin and produced at least some of the models used in Lalique’s workshop. Henri Vever records that Lalique was the first French jeweler to use a medallist’s reducing lathe to scale down larger sculpted models to a size appropriate for jewelry. The result is that his carved or molded figures are expertly proportioned and minutely precise. Lot 57, a corsage ornament with the playful theme “Le Vol de la Pierre” or “The Theft of the Stone,” features a central peridot flanked by two molded and carved glass panels depicting nude male figures carved into the reverse attempting to dislodge the stone using pry bars while clothed figures in bas relief on the front react with horrified gestures. Other fine examples of Lalique’s modeling of human subjects include lot 55, an enameled brooch depicting a female profile surrounded by leaves and lot 59, a pendant in the form of a naiad or nymph’s head with long hair apparently in the process of morphing into enameled seaweed.

Although Lalique turned his attention to glass later in his career, his early work as a jeweler continues to astonish and captivate, leaving no doubt regarding his status as a truly great artist.