Lalique, Rene (Jules)
(b Ay, Marne, 6 April 1860; d Paris, 1945).

French Jeweller, glassmaker and designer. He began his studies at the Lycee Turgot near Vincennes and after his father's death (1876) he was apprenticed to the Parisian jeweller Louis Aucoq, where he learnt to mount precious stones. 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 such firms as Cartier and Boucheron. His compositions began to acquire a reputation and in 1885 he took over the workshop of Jules d'Estape in the Rue du 4 Septembre, Paris. He rejected the current trend for diamonds in grand settings and instead used such gemstones as bloodstones, tourmalines, cornelians and chrysoberyls together with plique a 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 (e.g. water-nymph buckle, c. 1899--1901; Lisbon, Mus. Gulbenkian), 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 (e.g. Medusa vase, c. 1909--10; Lisbon, Mus. Gulbenkian; see also Jewellery, colour pl. II, fig. 1). In 1907 he was commissioned by Francois Coty to design some labels for his perfume bottles; Lalique also designed and created perfume bottles for other perfumers including Houbigant, Guerlain and Worth. 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. Other work in glass included panels of lights and tableware (1932) for the liner SS Normandie (destr. 1942) and interior design, including the window panel for Coty's shop in New York (in situ). During the 1930s he became increasingly interested in religious art and his work included the interiors (1931--2) of a chapel in the convent in Douvres-la-Delivrande, Normandy, the church of St Matthew (1933) at Milbrook near St Helier, Jersey, and a series of panels depicting the Way of the Cross in the church at Sauchy-Lestree, Pas-de-Calais (see fig.) based on models by the sculptor Henri Bouchard.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
C. Percy Vane: Lalique verrier, guide du collectionneur (Paris, 1977)
The Jewellery of Rene Lalique (exh. cat. by V. Becker, London, Goldsmiths' Co., 1987)
F. Marcillac: Lalique verrier et peintre: Catalogue raisonne de l'oeuvre (Paris, 1989)

CATHERINE BRISAC

Autres biographies