Rene Lalique was born in Ay, France in 1860. He was a glass designer renowned for his stunning creations of Lalique perfume bottles, vases, jewelry, chandeliers, clocks and in the later part of his life automobile hood ornaments. The company he founded is still active today. He spent his early life learning the methods of design and art he would use in his later life. At the age of two his family moved to a suburb of Paris due to his father’s work, but traveled to Ay for summer holidays.
These trips to Ay influenced Lalique’s later naturalistic glasswork. In 1872, when he was twelve, he entered the College Turgot where he started drawing and sketching. With the death of his father two years later, Lalique began working as an apprentice to the goldsmith Louis Aucoc in Paris and attended evening classes at the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs. He worked there for two years and then in 1876 moved to London to attend Sydenham Art College for two years.
At the Sydenham Art College, his skills for graphic design were improved, and his naturalistic approach to art was further developed. When he returned from England, he worked as a freelance artist, designing pieces of jewelry for French jewelers, Cartier, Boucheron and others. In 1885 he opened his own business and designed and made his own Lalique jewelry and Lalique glass. He was recognized as one of France’s foremost Art Nouveau jewelry designers, creating innovative pieces for Samuel Bing’s new Paris show, Maison de l’Art Noveau. He went on to be one of the most famous in his field, his name synonymous with creative, beauty and quality.
In the 1920’s he also became famous for his work in the Art Deco style, which can be seen in Lalique perfume bottles and Lalique vases. He was also responsible for the walls of lighted glass and elegant glass columns which filled the dining room and “grand salon” of the SS Normandie and the interior fittings, cross, screens, reredos, font of St. Matthew’s Churches at Millbrook in Jersey, also known as Lalique’s glass church.
Lalique crystal has still held the name for the beauty and quality that it represents. A Lalique bowl can go for over $35,000 U.S. Dollars. A lalique perfume bottle can go for just as much. Lalique holds the splendor for any family heirloom. Check Lalique out today!
