Thursday Throwback. Art Nouveau part 2. Who was Rene Lalique?

I enjoyed writing last weeks post, what is Art Nouveau?, so much I decided to make it a two part post. This week is part two and I wanted to tell you more about one of the leading jewellery designers of the period, Rene Lalique. It was also an excuse for me to research the man behind some of my most favourite pieces of Art Nouveau jewellery.

Rene Jules Lalique was one of the founders of modern jewellery. Lalique was 16 when he took a job as apprentice to Louis Aucoc who was among some of the leading jewellers of the day. It was with Aucoc that Lalique learnt jewellery production and design from the ground up. In 1878 he joined crystal palace school of art Sydenham, London and studied graphic design and developed his naturalistic approach to his pieces. After 2 years in London he moved back to Paris where he grew up, it was here his career started to really take off and he made pieces for Cartier and Boucheron as well as having some rich private clientele too. In 1890 he opened his own shop in the opera district of Paris. It was during his time at his new shop that most of the pieces he'd come to be known for where made, brought up from the depths of his creativity through experimentation with glass.

Lalique embraced Art Nouveau and it's design elements especially the naturalist and japonisme. He used materials not widely seen in the jewellery industry before his time, especially high end jewellery. My particular favourite he uses is glass, I'm a big fan of the effects he uses to make the glass frosted and the detail he then has in the glass, when a light is shone through them they look just like a black and white photograph, the shadowing is the best you've seen. It was this form of craft he would go on to use more and more in his later life becoming a world class glassmaker of not just jewellery but also wall lights, vases, screens and just about anything else. His best known pieces would include the dining room and salon room of the SS Normandie and the font of st. Matthews church at Millbrook in Jersey.

In 1897 he was awarded the croix de la legion d'honneur for the jewellery he exhibited at the world fair in Brussels. The best way to describe what this honour is, is to compare it to the British knighting of a sir, so pretty impressive! 

Lalique died 5th May 1945 in Paris, he was buried in Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Rene Lalique has been a truly interesting man to research, his jewellery is wonderful but I now also think a lot more of the man behind the jewellery. He worked hard and was rewarded with a great professional life!