René Jules Lalique (6 April 1860 – 1 May 1945) was a French jeweller, medallist, and glass designer known for his creations of glass art,

perfume Perfume (, ; french: parfum) is a mixture of fragrant essential oils or aroma compounds (fragrances), fixatives and solvents, usually in liquid form, used to give the human body, animals, food, objects, and living-spaces an agreeable scent. Th ...

bottles,

vase A vase ( or ) is an open container. It can be made from a number of materials, such as ceramics, glass, non-rusting metals, such as aluminium, brass, bronze, or stainless steel. Even wood has been used to make vases, either by using tree species ...

jewellery Jewellery ( UK) or jewelry (U.S.) consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the clothes. From a wester ...

, chandeliers,

clock A clock or a timepiece is a device used to measure and indicate time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month and t ...

s, and automobile

hood ornament A hood ornament (or bonnet ornament in Commonwealth English), also called, motor mascot, or car mascot is a specially crafted model which symbolizes a car company like a badge, located on the front center portion of the hood. It has been used ...

Life

Lalique's early life was spent learning the methods of design and art he would use in his later life. At the age of two, his family moved to the suburbs of Paris, but traveled to

Aÿ Aÿ (; also Ay) is a former commune in the Marne department in northeastern France. On 1 January 2016 it was merged into the new commune Aÿ-Champagne. Champagne Aÿ is most famous as a centre of the production of Champagne. Aÿ's vineyards a ...

for summer holidays. These trips influenced Lalique later on in his naturalistic glasswork. With the death of his father, Lalique began working as an apprentice to goldsmith

Louis Aucoc Louis Aucoc (21 September 1850 Paris – 10 December 1932 Paris), was a leading Parisian art nouveau jeweller and goldsmith, working with his father and brother André. Biography The Aucoc family firm at 6 Rue de la Paix was established in Paris i ...

in Paris. Lalique died on 1 May or 5 May 1945, in Paris. René Lalique was buried in

Père Lachaise Cemetery Père Lachaise Cemetery (french: Cimetière du Père-Lachaise ; formerly , "East Cemetery") is the largest cemetery in Paris, France (). With more than 3.5 million visitors annually, it is the most visited necropolis in the world. Notable figure ...

in Paris, France. His granddaughter, Marie Claude-Lalique (b. 1936), was also a glass maker. She died on 14 April 2003 in Fort Myers, Florida.

Education

In 1872, when he was twelve, he entered the Collège Turgot where he started drawing and sketching. He attended evening classes at the Ecole des arts décoratifs. He worked there from 1874 to 1876 and subsequently spent two years at the Crystal Palace School of Art Sydenham, London. During that time, he also practised as an apprentice goldsmith to leading Parisian Art Nouveau jeweller and goldsmith

. At the Sydenham Art College, his skills for graphic design were improved, and his naturalistic approach to art was further developed.

Art Nouveau jewellery designer

When he returned from England, he worked as a freelance artist, designing pieces of jewellery for French jewelers Cartier, Boucheron, and others. In 1885, he opened his own business, designed and made his own jewellery and other glass pieces. After 1895, Lalique also created pieces for

Samuel Bing Samuel Siegfried Bing (26 February 1838 – 6 September 1905), who usually gave his name as S. Bing (not to be confused with his brother, Samuel Otto Bing, 1850–1905), was a German-French art dealer who lived in Paris as an adult, and who ...

's Paris shop, the

Maison de l'Art Nouveau The Maison de l'Art Nouveau ("House of New Art"), abbreviated often as L'Art Nouveau, and known also as Maison Bing for the owner, was a gallery opened on 26 December 1895, by Siegfried Bing at 22 rue de Provence, Paris.Martin Eidelberg and Suzan ...

, which gave Art Nouveau its name. One of Lalique's major patrons was Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian, who commissioned more than 140 of his works over nearly 30 years.

Glass maker

Lalique was best known for his creations in glass art. In the 1920s, he became noted for his work in the

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

style. He was responsible for the walls of lighted glass and elegant coloured glass columns which filled the dining room and "grand salon" of the and the interior fittings, cross, screens, reredos and font of St. Matthew's Church at Millbrook in

Jersey Jersey ( , ; nrf, Jèrri, label= Jèrriais ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey (french: Bailliage de Jersey, links=no; Jèrriais: ), is an island country and self-governing Crown Dependency near the coast of north-west France. It is the l ...

(Lalique's "Glass Church"). As part of the Art Nouveau style, many of his jewellery pieces and vases showcase plants, flowers and flowing lines. Both unique and commercial works of René Lalique are in the collections of a large number of public museums around the world including the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon, the Lalique Museum of Hakone in Japan, the and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in France, the in Germany, the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

in London, the Metropolitan Museum and the Corning Museum in New York State, and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Works

File:Lalique "Spirit of the Wind" Mascot - Flickr - ingridtaylar.jpg, Citroën Company ''Spirit of the Wind,'' Blackhawk Museum File:Horse by René Jules Lalique.jpg, Toyota: ''Horse'' File:Cigales Lalique Musée Gulbenkian.jpg, ''Cicadas'', Museu Calouste Gulbenkian File:1956 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith 'Perspex Roof' motif - Flickr - exfordy.jpg, 1956 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith, glass model File:Tiara de Lalique - Calouste Gulbenkian.jpg, Tiara, Museu Calouste Gulbenkian File:Lalique Hood ornament.jpg, Lalique Hood ornament File:René lalique, vaso ronde d'amours et feuillage, francia 1930.JPG, Glass vase File:Fern Leaves Brooch Lalique.jpg, Fern Leaves Brooch,

Walters Art Museum The Walters Art Museum, located in Mount Vernon-Belvedere, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is a public art museum founded and opened in 1934. It holds collections established during the mid-19th century. The museum's collection was amassed ...

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

File:Medusa by René Lalique22.jpg, ''Medusa'' File:Lalique glass altarpiece in the Glass Church Jersey.jpg, Lalique glass altarpiece in St. Matthew's Church (the Glass Church), Millbrook,

File:René lailique, pettorale libellula, in oro, smalti, crisoprazio, calcedonio, pietre lunari e diamanti, 1897-98 ca. 01.jpg, Dragonfly lady brooch, Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, acquired from the artist in 1903 File:Vase - René Lalique.JPG, Glass vase, Museu Calouste Gulbenkian File:Lalique "Thistle" pendant.jpg, Pendant, Museu Calouste Gulbenkian File:Necklace MET DT1423.jpg, Necklace designed for Lalique's second wife, Alice Ledru, ca 1897–99,

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, New York File:A lighting fixture of René Lalique in the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum.jpg, A lighting fixture in the great dining room in the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum. File:A lighting fixture of René Lalique in the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum2.jpg, A lighting fixture in the great dining room in the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum. File:Khalili Collection Enamels of the World FR919.jpg, Corsage ornament, Khalili Collection of Enamels of the World File:Nude Vénus.jpg, Nude Venus of René Lalique in the Mougins Museum of Classical Art

References

Bibliography

* Bayer, Patricia & Waller, Mark: ''The Art of René Lalique'', Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd, London 1988 * Dawes, Nicholas M.: ''Lalique Glass'', Crown Publishers, London 1986 * Elliott, Kelley J. ''René Lalique: Enchanted by Glass'', The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York 2014. * Weiner, Geoffrey George ''Unique Lalique Mascots'', The Book Guild Ltd., Brighton 2014

External links

Rene Lalique
Biography at RLalique.com.

from the company web site. *
This is Jersey
article on St Matthew's Millbrook, the "Glass Church".
Musée Lalique
official website of French museum entirely about Lalique
Lalique Museum Doesburg
Dutch museum about René Lalique and contemporaries * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lalique, Rene 1860 births 1945 deaths Art Nouveau designers Art Deco designers Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery French decorative artists French glass artists French jewellery designers People from Marne (department)