LALIQUE, René
French jeweller, glassmaker and designer. As a young student, he showed great artistic promise and his mother guided him toward jewellery making. From 1876 to 1878 he apprenticed with Louis Aucoc, a noted Parisian jeweller. Unable to further his training in France, he went to London to study at Sydenham College, which specialized in the graphic arts.
On his return to Paris in 1880, he found employment as a jewellery designer creating models for firms like Cartier and Boucheron. By the 1890s, he had opened his workshop in Paris and become one of the most admired jewellers of the day.
He rejected the current trend for diamonds in grand settings, instead used such gemstones as bloodstones, tourmalines, cornelians and chrysoberyls together with plique à jour enamelling and inexpensive metals for his creations. His jewellery, which was in the Art Nouveau style, included hair combs, collars, brooches, necklaces and buckles, and he also branched out into metalwork, producing gold boxes, inkwells and daggers. His favourite motifs included flowers and insects - poppies and anemones, and dragonflies and scarabs. His international reputation was established at the Exposition Universelle in 1887 in Paris and by securing such patrons as the actress Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1933).
In 1898 Lalique established a glass workshop in Clairfontaine where he largely employed the cire perdue process. In 1907 he was commissioned by François Coty to design some labels for his perfume bottles; Lalique also designed and created perfume bottles for other perfumers. In 1910 he bought a glassworks in Combs-la-Ville and in 1919 another in Wingen-sur-Moder, Alsace. At the latter, he employed the press-moulding technique for mass-produced items including light fittings, vases, table lamps, clockcases, bowls, ashtrays, ceiling fittings, furniture and car mascots, all of which were designed in the Art Deco style.
