The Art of Rene Lalique

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Lalique, Rene (Lalique, René) (1860-1945), French fashion designer and entrepreneur, a representative of modernity, leading figures of jewelry and artistic glass.
Born in the town of Hay (Department of the Marne) 6 April 1860. In 1876 he enrolled as an apprentice to a goldsmith, he continued his education at the School of Decorative Arts in Paris and the studios of London (1878-1880). He worked on the orders of the house of Cartier, and then - with P. Destapa, who gave him in 1886, manages his workshop. Advertising its products contributed to a resounding success at the World Expo 1900, and the fact that among the principal ordered it Lalique was a famous Sarah Bernhardt.

Created combs, buckles and various ornaments, using, in addition to the traditional gold, silver and precious stones, horn, as well as semiprecious stones, a total of almost released at the time of use. Do everything to raise his - against the backdrop of intensive mechanization of jewelry - the value of manual labor and figurative beginning, opposing the latest luxury purely quantitative (number of carats in "A Lalique", usually much less than in the same kind of standard jewelry at the time). Introduced into their works unprecedented for this kind of sharp dramatic arts: in addition to whimsical curling women's hair and drapery, flowers and peacocks of his favorite motifs were shimmering snake and insects. Introducing the grotesque and mythological.

From 1909 he focused his interests exclusively to art glass, becoming a reformer in this area. Founded a glass factory at Combs-la-Ville (1910), and in 1918 bought another, larger plant in Vinzhen sur Modera (Alsace). Preferred (as compared with glass, E. Halle) is much more simple shapes and surfaces, decorating them, however, subtle relief, delicately podtsvechennym decor. In this model, cast or pressed into forms that provided mass production (led the way in her famous perfume bottles, but the company Lalique produced as a dining room and decorative utensils, lamps and chandeliers, and later the large decorative panels). Appearing one of the stylistic sources of Art Deco, his glassmaking reached peaks of popularity in 1920 when the panels and other products Lalique has become one of the main decorations of the French department of the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Paris (1925).

Lalique died in Paris on May 5, 1945.

A. Yakovlev Engraved branch delphinium - RJ Lalique and his works in the Hermitage. - The Soviet museum, 1991, № 1

Photographs of works of Rene Lalique Museum d'Orsay (France) and the Calouste Gulbenkian (Portugal):