The Brilliance Of Jewellery in the Art Nouveau Era

I shall mention a few of Art Nouveau’s jewellery artists in this topic, such as Alphonse Fouquet and  René Lalique, and Georg Jensen.

Alphonse Fouquet, a prominent 19th-century Parisian jeweller, was famous because of his extensive use of enamel and coloured stone. He had disapproved the works of his contemporaries work in the same industry but had said about Lalique: “Till now, I didn’t know any jewellery designers, but now, here we have one!”

The famous French Industrial designer of the Art Nouveau’s period, René Lalique, had extensive skills and expertise in glass art, jewellery and the watch industry. He also produced decorative art products such as crystal vases, chandeliers and decorative hoods. During his youth, he put a lot of effort to acquire the knowledge required for the delicate techniques of applied art.

Lalique had apprenticed to Louis Aucoc, the Parisian Art Nouveau jeweller and goldsmith, and continued his work as a freelance artist with the famous Jewel factory, Cartier. Lalique cooperated later with the Maison de l’Art Nouveau; an art gallery opened in Paris by the Franco-German art dealer Siegfried Bing. A British-Armenian businessman Calouste Gulbenkian gathered an extensive art collection and commissioned many of René Lalique’s work due to his fortune.

René Lalique, like other artists influenced by Art Nouveau, gained his inspiration from natural forms such as the sinuous curves of irises, pansies, vines, and orchids. His jewellery motifs evoked the shapes of creatures like swans, peacocks, dragonflies and even mythological creatures and female silhouettes. Converting the modern materials, particularly fine-wrought gold, into delicate asymmetric lines was a new challenge for jewellery as ancient art.