Jewelry Examples

Lalique Jewelry was Rene Laliques first Passion.

Rene was apprenticed to a major jeweller in Paris and eventually became the foremost jeweller in Paris.

He worked extensively in Gold and other precious metals and a wide range of gems.

He especially excelled in brooches and necklaces featuring insects and art nouveau ladies. Some of his special pieces combined art nouveau swirls and delightul portraits in the Art Nouveau Style.

The Insect jewelry is very unusual as Rene designed 'improvements' on nature by adding extra eyes or legs to the ones he made.

This gave his work an unusual other-worldly feel.

After his training at Sydenham College in London, Rene Returned to Paris and working as a freelance artist he designed
Jewellery for major companies including Boucheron and Cartier.He also created jewelry for Maison de L'Art Nouveau
the shop spcialising in art Nouveau products and jewellery which was run by Siegfried Bing.

There seems to be a strong influence of Egyptian Jewelry (including scarabs) and this is not suprising as most of Europe was pretty excited by the various finds from Egypt in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

There are delightful examples of Lalique's Jewelry in the Musee D'Orsay in Paris and the V&A museums which are both well worth visiting and have excellent samples of his work in both Jewelry and Glass..