The Lalique mystique

Although René Lalique (1860-1945) only spent a part of his illustrious career working on jewelry, he made an impression in the world of Art Nouveau designs before moving on to other innovative creations as a glassmaker. Decades later, his jewelry continues to attract visitors to the stellar collection that businessman and philanthropist Calouste Gulbenkian amassed in the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon, Portugal.

The museum’s Lalique Collection, which includes art objects and glasswork among its approximately 180 items, is rich in jewelry, explains Luisa Sampaio, curator of the collection. It essentially covers the main periods of the artist’s creations, she notes. “The jewels collection, specifically, includes pendants, diadems, dog collars, breast pins and bracelets...which means that it comprises all categories of jewelry made by the artist. Some of the pieces preserved in the museum are among the most famous in the world.”

One of Lalique’s most interesting contributions to Art Nouveau, Sampaio says, is “that he brought to jewelry — or more precisely, to bijouterie — elements such as ivory, horn, enamel and glass, which replaced on many occasions the use of precious stones. His prodigious imagination, combined with his technical virtuosity, ended up making him the ‘inventor of modern bijoux,’ according to the words of Emille Gallé, another great figure from the beginning of the Art Nouveau movement.”

Lalique’s boldness in creating precious objects with unexpected materials allowed him to explore “the technical potential,” she adds. From an artistic point of view, “it can also be said that it was a revolution of form and content.”

Nature as inspiration

Nature is everywhere in the abundant fauna and flora that Lalique transposed to his objects, says the curator. He would even “replicate photographs he took on his property in Clairefontaine in jewels.” Horrific creatures also occupy a prominent place, she notes, as they were “a very characteristic aspect of the spirit of the time.”

Lalique’s main influences were diverse, according to Sampaio, “but clearly the most distinguished inspirations can be found in Japanese art — the hair combs that he created very much reflect that source — [as well as] Renaissance jewelry, medieval sculpture and even Egyptian motifs,” as in the collection’s Scarabs breast pin.

Many of Lalique’s favorite themes from the 1890s turn up again in his Art Deco period, after World War I, adds Sampaio, “such as the decoration motifs of peacocks or serpents in vases or in daily-use objects in glass.”

A meeting of the minds

Gulbenkian started collecting Lalique jewelry around 1900, relates Sampaio. “We know that they were friends and met around 1895. On the occasion of the last jewelry exhibition held by Lalique at Place Vendôme, in 1912, Gulbenkian already had in his possession the impressive number of 69 jewels.”

The two men shared a common love for nature, “a bond that unquestionably brought them together,” she says. “It is clearly reflected both in the work of Lalique and in the collection, as a whole, of Calouste Gulbenkian. He started [collecting] the jewels in the transition to the 20th century, and he bought all his pieces directly from Lalique, with only one exception.”

Gulbenkian bought these pieces not to be used, but to be viewed as artworks, she asserts. “He had special showcases at his house in Paris where the Lalique pieces could be admired.”

The collection includes some of Lalique’s most fascinating creations from the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, the curator says, such as the Dragonfly Woman, Peacock, and Serpents breast pins, and the Cockerel and Orchids diadems — the latter in ivory and horn. “Dragonfly Woman — half female, half dragonfly — is an excellent example of an iconic piece by Lalique, maybe the major one. Also, the theme of the woman-flower is strongly present in the collection in some of its most beautiful pendants, with women’s faces framed by poppies or orchids in bloom.”

Citing a Gulbenkian quote that “only the best is good enough for me,” Sampaio declares that “in the case of the Lalique acquisitions, this statement is undeniably true.”

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A room of his own

Of the 180 items in the Lalique Collection of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, nearly half — 82 — are jewels, notes the collection’s curator, Luisa Sampaio. Notably, the museum has had an entire room dedicated solely to Lalique since its opening in 1969, she says.

The first piece acquired was the Copse dog collar, around 1898-99, “depicting a woodland scene of trees and ivy in gold and translucent green enamel against a background lake set with iridescent opal,” relates Sampaio. “The last, purchased in 1920, is the Mermaids pendant in molded and pressed glass.”

From time to time, she continues, “we can occasionally buy a drawing related to the jewels that we have. But the collection (and the spirit of the collection) remains essentially the one that led Calouste Gulbenkian to gather his more than 6,000 works of art — his ‘children,’ as he refers to them — during more than 50 years and that, according to his wish, remain by testamentary disposition under the same roof [in the museum].”

Image: Calouste Gulbenkian Museum

Article from the Rapaport Magazine - May 2020. To subscribe click here.