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Wartski Expert Katherine Purcell: Poetry in Jewelry
51 Plays8 years ago
A conversation with Katherine Purcell of Wartski about a Lalique art nouveau necklace.
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Transcript
Introduction to René Lalique and Jewelry Genius
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Speaker
Roni Lalique stands apart from all other jewellers in that he is quite widely regarded as the genius of Arnavur jewellery.
00:00:18
Speaker
Curious Objects is sponsored by Rinalda House Museum of American Art, one of the nation's most highly regarded collections of American art, on view in the unique domestic setting of the 1917 R.J.
00:00:29
Speaker
Reynolds Mansion.
00:00:30
Speaker
Browse the art and decorative arts collection at rinaldahouse.org, that's R-E-Y-N-O-L-D-A house.org, and visit in person in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Meet Catherine Purcell: Storyteller Extraordinaire
00:00:42
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Welcome to another episode of Curious Objects and the Stories Behind Them, brought to you by the magazine Antiques.
00:00:47
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I'm your host, Ben Miller, and I've got a great show for you today.
00:00:50
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I'm talking with Catherine Purcell of the firm Wortski in London about a fascinating necklace by the Art Nouveau jeweler René Lalique.
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Catherine is a phenomenal storyteller, and what she has to say about this piece really brings the people and objects of Art Nouveau and the Belle Epoque to life.
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In some ways, it's really changed how I think about this whole period, and I really think you'll enjoy it.
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So I encourage you to visit themagazineantiques.com, where you'll find an image of the necklace and some other images and links.
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Finally, as the host of a new podcast, I'm relying on you guys to tell me what you like and what you don't like and what you want to hear more of.
00:01:26
Speaker
So please, if you have any comments or questions, send an email to podcast at themagazineantiques.com.
00:01:33
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I'll read it.
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I'll respond to you.
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I really appreciate it.
Exploring a René Lalique Necklace
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Okay, let's get started.
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Catherine Purcell, thanks so much for talking to me.
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It's a real pleasure.
00:01:41
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Thank you for inviting me.
00:01:43
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We're talking about a piece of jewelry, although to call it a piece of jewelry is maybe giving it short shrift because it's really, it is a, it's a necklace, a pendant necklace, but it's also, I think anyone would agree, a work of art.
00:01:58
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It's a piece by a French jeweler from the 19th century.
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And I'm wondering if you can give a physical description for our listeners.
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Absolutely.
00:02:08
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Well, it takes the form of a pendant on a long chain.
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The pendant itself is centred with a female bust portrait of a young woman.
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Most striking is the fact that she is enveloped in branches supporting pine cones and needles.
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The pendant is suspended with three pearls and the chain work echoes the motifs, also bearing pine cones and needles interspersed with pearls.
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The piece doesn't have a single gemstone in it.
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It is entirely decorated with enamel in terms of the female portrait.
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The enamel is principally in dusky shades of blue to grey.
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and her hair is very dark, almost black in colour.
Unveiling the Muse: Augustine Alice Ledru
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And the pine cones themselves are of enamel, which has been etched to give them volume.
00:03:12
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The branches so envelop her as to almost reveal her face amidst the branches.
00:03:20
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She's actually clasping one of the branches in her hand.
00:03:24
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So that is the first appearance of the piece, if you like.
00:03:28
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I want to come back to the physical form and the design and the aesthetics, but who is the woman?
00:03:35
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Well, that is the key question because I've discovered that the woman in question was actually his muse.
00:03:42
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Her name was Augustine Alice Ledru.
00:03:45
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They met in her father's studio because...
00:03:48
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Her father was actually the bronze foundry maker to René Lalique's bronze works and at the time that this particular pendant was carried out they had not yet married.
00:04:01
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They actually met in 1890 but married in 1902 and we
00:04:10
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fortunately have this particular jewel recorded in contemporary periodicals because it was featured at the 1900 Paris exhibition and evidently caused such a stir then that it was reproduced in a number of contemporary journals including L'Exposition Universelle de 1900 by Gustave Jeffroy
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which was published in 1902 but was a resume of the entire exhibition.
00:04:41
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And equally well, Henri Vever, in his three-volume history of French jewellery, chose to illustrate it.
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Which I should interject, we have in English thanks to your work.
00:04:53
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Yes, I did translate the three-volume history into English, that's correct.
00:04:57
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So were these publications, how did you discover the identity of this woman?
00:05:03
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Is it because of those publications?
00:05:05
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Yes.
Symbolism and Romance in Lalique's Work
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It wasn't the publications that actually held the key.
00:05:09
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The first clue that I had is the fact that at the base of the pendant, the actual little cut-out form from which the centre pearl is suspended is actually a cut-out heart.
00:05:24
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And I'd actually never seen this feature in a duel by René Lalique before.
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It led me to think that there must be some kind of romantic association.
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between him and the sitter, if you like.
00:05:37
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And I started to read further accounts of female figures in his jewels, and it turned out that Augustine Alice did feature in a number of his works of that period, particularly before they got married.
00:05:54
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And he was obviously very inspired by her.
00:05:57
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After marriage, it's hard to motivate yourself.
00:06:01
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Well, we hope that that's not the case, but certainly the majority of the work seem to have been created in those earlier years.
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During the courtship.
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During the courtship.
00:06:14
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And in fact, very usefully, the Corning Museum of Glass has a Bastille featuring her, signed by René Lalique, which we have always known to have been of her.
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And she had quite a distinctive profile with quite a pronounced chin,
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And this is borne out by photographs of the two of them together.
00:06:36
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So this is an incredibly personal jewel and it's by no means incidental that the motifs in the jewel are actually fur cones and pearls because pine cones in the language of botany stands for eternity.
00:06:53
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Hmm.
00:06:54
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And the pearl, because Venus was born from a pearl, symbolizes love.
00:06:59
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So you already have eternal love in this jewel.
00:07:03
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The heart notwithstanding, rather charmingly, as you turn the jewel over, you actually find a mirror image of
00:07:12
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the jewel in chased and engraved form, which is very typical of René Lalique's attention to detail, the ability and in fact the priority he gives to all aspects of his jewels, whether, for example, making a piece from plicage au renault, but actually designing it as a choker.
00:07:37
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So only the wearer would know that
00:07:40
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it carries this great sophistication of plicage enamel, which is immediately lost when you wear it right against the skin.
00:07:47
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So in the same way, only the wearer would have known that the jewel was so elaborately finished on the reverse.
Craftsmanship and Rarity in Modern Times
00:07:55
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That's a really special feature, and it makes the piece all the more intimate, to know that there was an element that was reserved only for the person for whom it was made.
00:08:05
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I don't know if you find that in contemporary jewellery so often.
00:08:08
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Yeah.
00:08:09
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Well, as we know in the world of jewellery, the more you handle, the more you know that the first thing you do is actually to turn the jewel over because if it's beautifully finished on the reverse, it's an indication that it's going to be fantastically made.
00:08:24
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on the front as well, is the attention to the unseen detail, which is always the key.
00:08:29
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It's like looking under the hood of a car.
00:08:31
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Yes, that's correct, in another field.
00:08:36
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So I would say now that we have reached a different age that does not involve years, years of apprenticeships, for example, as happened in the 19th century in all forms of the decorative arts,
00:08:53
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Now, unfortunately, time is money, and so it is actually quite rare to find pieces that are as elaborately finished on the reverse as they are to the front.
00:09:07
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Very few contemporary, let's say, artist-jewellers can actually put that time finished.
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and effort into completing something as fantastically.
00:09:22
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It may be very beautifully finished, but it wouldn't be carried necessarily to the same extent as he would see it right in front.
00:09:29
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So this was something that really René Lalique prided himself on.
00:09:33
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And he stood above his contemporaries even in that regard.
00:09:37
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He did, although I would say that there were some extraordinarily talented jewelers and enamolers working at the time.
00:09:47
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And all of them, be they Fouquet, Henri Vivert, Frédéric Boucheron, had known this era of immensely long trainings in the different fields that they specialised in.
Artistic Influences and Imagination of Lalique
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And therefore, when one reads accounts of Alphonse Fouquet and Fouquet,
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how at the age of 12 he was literally on bread and water sleeping under the workshops as he trained to become a jeweler.
00:10:13
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Those stories I'm sure are not isolated and therefore they were trained with this exactitude to detail.
00:10:25
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It so happens that Rony Lalique had other talents such as an extraordinary imagination
00:10:32
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He was very lucky in benefiting from some very early patronage that helped his career enormously.
00:10:42
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But Ronny Lalique stands apart from all other jewellers in that he is quite widely regarded as the genius of Arnavur jewellery.
00:10:53
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This piece made around 1900, today it's at Wortski.
00:10:59
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Where has it been in between?
00:11:01
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Well, that has been a bit of a mystery.
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We know that it has been in a private collection for a number of decades.
00:11:07
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Beyond that, we don't know from the time that it was owned by René Lalique's wife until it arrived in this private collection, we don't know.
00:11:20
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Indeed, it has been lost for a number of decades because when Sigrid Barton wrote her catalogue raisonné on René Lalique,
00:11:29
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It is simply featured in black and white photographic form and the photograph is actually the very one that was illustrated by Henri Viver in his book, which was published in 1908.
00:11:42
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So there was no colour image available of this work.
00:11:46
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So to discover, first of all, the palette in which it was carried out was a real revelation.
00:11:52
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It's in absolutely perfect condition.
00:11:55
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Now, you mentioned that there are no precious gemstones in this piece, and that's typical of Art Nouveau jewelry, is it not?
00:12:02
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That is, but I have to say that René Lalique was one of the very first to embrace this particular aspect of Japanese art.
00:12:15
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One can't talk about René Lalique without talking about Japan.
00:12:19
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Japanese works of art were first seen in Paris in 1867 at the Exposition Universelle, when for the first time the Japanese were able to organise their first pavillon, truly representative of their works of art.
00:12:34
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And this was a real revelation to fellow artists from all over the world, but particularly the French, who fought over these Japanese works of art.
00:12:45
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And not least for...
00:12:47
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the sense of artistry that was imbued in the most modest materials, so be it basket weaving, be it the carving of common cow horn, it applied itself into every single type of material and this was something that was not at all lost on René-Lanique.
00:13:06
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And as you rightly say, this particular jewel
00:13:09
Speaker
It doesn't have a single precious stone in it, not even a semi-precious stone.
00:13:12
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It is literally just enamel and pearls.
00:13:16
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And he was so inspired by this that he himself started exploring the use of ivory and common cow horn in his jewellery, as well as tortoiseshell.
00:13:29
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he exhibited for the first time in 1897 his display almost entirely devoted to combs carved from tortoiseshell and Ivory and horn which caused a sensation nothing had ever been seen like this before really such artistry in very very modest materials and
00:13:53
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I think that this certainly led the way for an awful lot of other artists, such as Lucien Gaillard, who equally well started creating combs made from similar materials.
00:14:06
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I also think the whole attitude shifted in terms of the appreciation of different types of very time-consuming techniques
00:14:19
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such as different types of enamel which were certainly not intrinsically valuable but commanded a huge amount of time.
00:14:29
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The technique of plicageur enamel for instance, the building up of many many layers of enamel from a specific contour is hugely time consuming and as I said is
00:14:44
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very difficult to actually wear in such a form that it's instantly revealed.
00:14:49
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So one could have, for example, a comb made of pliquet-jour enamel.
00:14:52
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This would be the perfect jewel because worn high in the hair and they had very large coiffures at the time.
00:15:01
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One would see the daylight coming through the enamels and of course you then had that rich panoply of vibrant colors immediately to be seen as you walked into a room.
00:15:14
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However, plique à jour enamel is a very difficult form of jewellery to wear, but obviously it's also quite fragile.
00:15:21
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It's instantly lost if you wear it as a choker, but equally well if you wear it as a bracelet or a pendant, because it will be constantly against a surface.
00:15:29
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So it was nevertheless something that was very much explored, as were other types of enamels, such as chanlevé enamels and so on at that time.
00:15:39
Speaker
So I think this use of...
00:15:43
Speaker
non-intrinsically valuable materials was very much something that was symptomatic of Arnaud, you're quite right.
00:15:52
Speaker
I would just perhaps like to just emphasize once again why René Lalique was really a precursor in everything he did.
Nature's Duality in Jewelry Design
00:16:02
Speaker
And to go back to the influence of Japan in his work, because it wasn't exclusively the use of non-intrinsically valuable materials that actually was so influenced by Japanese works of art, but also, I would say, the scrutiny of the world in all its forms.
00:16:26
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The sense of the duality of nature, for instance,
00:16:32
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In Japanese art, whether you take a netsuke or a bronze, none of the craftsmen were shy about showing the decay of the natural world.
00:16:43
Speaker
And this is something that René Lalique,
00:16:47
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in his close scrutiny of nature of a child would have very much taken on board.
00:16:51
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But I think to take it into the field of jewellery was something quite unknown.
00:16:57
Speaker
And therefore when he, and I'm talking about Lalique now, shows, let's say, a tiara that consists of branches of fern,
00:17:09
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and he's showing them under the weight perhaps of water.
00:17:13
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He's not showing them in the way that one might traditionally think of a botanical motif, when he also will take a leaf and shown it gnawed away at by insects.
00:17:28
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This is something that was entirely new, and this close observation of nature was miles apart from the full-blown roses that one might have seen in diamond-set jewelry in the 18th and 19th century.
00:17:40
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Sure, the heavily romanticized depictions.
00:17:43
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Exactly.
00:17:44
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It was this immense study of nature that was very much part of him, and I think stimulated by seeing...
00:17:52
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Japanese works of art and equally well in some of the landscapes that he showed.
00:17:58
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This duality was shown in everything.
00:18:02
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He showed a very poetic looking winter landscape for example with a landscape of fir trees with snow on the branches.
00:18:14
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the contours of the actual pendant would consist of the nulled branches and tree trunks, but right down to the roots that would be shown at the base of the pendant from which a pearl was suspended.
00:18:29
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This showed both sides of the natural world, if you like.
00:18:33
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You didn't just stay with the beautifully snow-capped mountains.
00:18:37
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There was always something going on underneath.
00:18:41
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And...
00:18:42
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In the same way that one could see the beauty in the savagery of the animal world, this duality was also shown in the female figure.
00:18:53
Speaker
One of his most famous pieces in the Gulbenkian collection consisted of a woman turning into a dragonfly, but very menacing in that she appears to have claws for fingers and becomes almost monstrous, if you like.
00:19:10
Speaker
And I think...
00:19:12
Speaker
This was something that had never been explored before in jewellery and was something completely new.
00:19:17
Speaker
And that's a stark contrast to, for example, Louis Comfort Tiffany, who also drew heavily on Japanese inspiration.
Pine Cones and Personal Inspirations
00:19:23
Speaker
But his glass, the famous stained glass windows that you can find at museums around the world, these are beautiful garden scenes.
00:19:34
Speaker
These are unblemished depictions of nature.
00:19:36
Speaker
These are perfect sunsets where...
00:19:41
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every bird is properly placed, every flower is at the right proportion.
00:19:47
Speaker
Why do you think Lalique, drawing on some of these same sources of inspiration, went to the raw, unbounded,
00:19:58
Speaker
brutality of nature alongside the obvious romantic and aesthetic attraction of it?
00:20:06
Speaker
That's a very good question.
00:20:08
Speaker
Certainly when he was very young, he's known to have been spending the majority of his childhood drawing nature as he saw it.
00:20:20
Speaker
He felt that the truth to nature was very, very important.
00:20:25
Speaker
And his early drawings do show all kinds of insects and plants that had never really been shown before.
00:20:33
Speaker
But he is trying to really show that there are two sides to nature.
00:20:41
Speaker
It's going to take a certain type of woman to wear something that doesn't show necessarily the beauty of nature.
00:20:48
Speaker
But would have probably appealed to certain...
00:20:51
Speaker
people like Sarah Bernhardt because they did not want to wear jewellery that was harking back to what had been made centuries before.
00:21:02
Speaker
They wanted to make their own mark.
00:21:05
Speaker
And this was a way of doing it, not just through their behaviour, but immediately announcing through what they wore that they were with the new fashions, with the new designers, and particularly with René Lalique.
00:21:18
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Mm-hmm.
00:21:19
Speaker
The influence of nature on his work is hugely important and in fact the introduction of pine cones as a motif in this particular duel is interesting in terms of date because in 1898 René Lalique acquired a property in Paris, to the south of Paris, called Clairefontaine which was populated with fir trees and it's from that date that he started to incorporate that motif in his work.
00:21:46
Speaker
There's a watch case in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs entirely decorated with pine cones.
00:21:51
Speaker
There's a series of drawings by him showing them.
00:21:55
Speaker
And his first attempts at photography, in fact, take place at Clairefontaine, where, interestingly, he...
00:22:04
Speaker
takes images of the lower part of the tree trunks and the lowest branches.
00:22:09
Speaker
He doesn't take the entire tree.
00:22:11
Speaker
And this, of course, is very reminiscent of the fragmented depiction of nature and images as seen in Japanese art.
00:22:20
Speaker
That strange perspective in which one doesn't see a whole image but a fraction of it, and then that draws you in.
00:22:27
Speaker
This is very much how his first photographs of the pine trees are taken.
00:22:32
Speaker
The motif was introduced from about 1899, I'd say a year after he bought the property.
00:22:40
Speaker
So yes, I have to say that's probably why I also consider René Lalique to be the genius of Art Nouveau, because it's to do with imagination and materials.
00:22:53
Speaker
And of course,
00:22:55
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a quality of craftsmanship that is pretty much unequalled.
00:23:10
Speaker
We're just going to take a quick break now.
00:23:12
Speaker
I really hope you're having as much fun listening to this as I did talking with Catherine.
00:23:17
Speaker
One of the great perks of talking to antique dealers is they're natural-born storytellers, and Catherine is no exception.
00:23:23
Speaker
When we come back, we're going to talk a little bit about the context behind Lalique's work and some of his contemporary artists, Hauden and others who had strong influences on Lalique's work.
00:23:34
Speaker
I want to encourage you and remind you to go to themagazineantiques.com and look at some of the images that are posted of the necklace and other Lalique work.
00:23:43
Speaker
As wonderful and colorful as Catherine's descriptions are, you deserve and you owe it to yourself to see a picture of this necklace.
00:23:51
Speaker
It's a truly stunning object and you will never forget it.
00:23:55
Speaker
So go to themagazineantiques.com, look at the images.
00:23:58
Speaker
We'll be right back.
00:24:07
Speaker
Thanks to our sponsor for this episode, Rinalda House Museum of American Art, celebrating its 50th anniversary with a new publication, Rinalda, Her Muses, Her Stories, that takes readers behind the scenes of one of the nation's most prestigious collections.
00:24:21
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00:24:30
Speaker
She wrote, It was as though I was sitting in a theater with an intense drama enacted in front of me.
00:24:35
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00:24:40
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00:24:51
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00:24:55
Speaker
RinaldaHouse.org.
00:25:07
Speaker
Welcome back.
Listener Engagement and Feedback
00:25:08
Speaker
Thanks again for listening.
00:25:10
Speaker
Don't forget to leave us a rating and subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes.
00:25:14
Speaker
And again, if you have any comments or suggestions, send an email to podcast at themagazineantiques.com.
00:25:31
Speaker
This is something I haven't really thought about before, but
00:25:35
Speaker
What kind of prices did these jewels, this one of course was made for someone he had an intimate relationship with and so not presumably on the private market, but jewels that Lalique was making, these were a new form, they were a new idea, they didn't incorporate stones that carried value intrinsically.
Patronage and Artistic Networking
00:25:56
Speaker
What kind of prices were these pieces fetching?
00:25:59
Speaker
They certainly commanded high prices even in their day.
00:26:03
Speaker
I have to say, so at this early point, I was talking about the patronage that he was fortunate enough to attract.
00:26:12
Speaker
It was very fortunate for him that the great actress Sarah Bernhardt discovered his work.
00:26:19
Speaker
in the early 1890s, in fact in 1892, because it allowed him to make not only theatrical jewels for her, but also very personal pieces of jewellery that would make his name better known to a wider clientele, who would also perhaps not be frightened by the more avant-garde aspect of his jewels, because certainly for a woman to be wearing a female form on her as a piece of jewellery...
00:26:49
Speaker
must have been quite auze at the time.
00:26:53
Speaker
Whereas previously one was quite happy to wear botanical motifs, which really were the most common form of jewellery ornament in the 18th and 19th century.
00:27:07
Speaker
The idea of actually a woman wearing
00:27:09
Speaker
a sort of naked female figure carved from ivory as one found in works by René Lalique or by Gaillard or Vévert, would have seemed extremely bold and would certainly not have suited every woman.
00:27:26
Speaker
And I think it took a particular type of person who was prepared to make a statement
00:27:33
Speaker
in public about how avant garde she was in terms of wearing something like this.
00:27:38
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This being Sarah Bernhardt.
00:27:40
Speaker
I think also the fact that the artistic world was very much a close one at that time.
00:27:50
Speaker
And for example,
00:27:51
Speaker
René Lalique and Auguste Rodin knew each other.
00:27:57
Speaker
One found, for example, certain subjects in each other's work echoing the other.
00:28:03
Speaker
Everyone is familiar with the Rodin sculpture entitled The Kiss.
00:28:07
Speaker
Well, René Lalique himself carried out two or three jewels in which the center section are male and female kissing.
00:28:16
Speaker
It's fascinating for me to hear about these relationships between a jeweler and artists.
00:28:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:23
Speaker
Which, again, you don't necessarily think of as being very closely connected feels.
00:28:29
Speaker
But at this time, at least for Lalique, it was.
00:28:31
Speaker
And they do know each other.
00:28:32
Speaker
I mean, I've read a book of correspondence...
00:28:36
Speaker
of René Lalique's in which he talks about going to Rodin's studio.
00:28:40
Speaker
So in fact it's no coincidence that Rodin and Lalique should have known each other given they both did work in bronze, Rodin obviously so, but Lalique did create works in bronze and they shared amongst others the bronze foundry maker Le Dru.
00:28:58
Speaker
Right.
00:29:00
Speaker
Interestingly enough, Sarah Bernhard herself carried out works in bronze too and was very interested in sculpture.
00:29:08
Speaker
So one has this great connection between different art forms, different artists.
Influence of Graphic Arts in Jewelry
00:29:14
Speaker
And similarly, it's not a coincidence that Sarah Bernhard's theatrical posters were all carried out by Alphonse Moura.
00:29:27
Speaker
because interestingly, the very flattened form that you see in the jewel we're looking at now, with the very curvilinear treatment of the hair, which helps you date it to about 1900, is very much the echoing of the flattened form one finds in the graphic arts of the period.
00:29:49
Speaker
Interesting.
00:29:50
Speaker
Yes, the theatrical posters that Alphonse Mourat created for
00:29:55
Speaker
Sarah Bernhardt.
00:29:57
Speaker
And once we look at this pendant in complete isolation, it's that line of the hair that would be the total giveaway in terms of the dating of the piece.
00:30:09
Speaker
Because it's not the palette itself that would tell you that it was necessarily 1900 or her attitude.
00:30:19
Speaker
It is really this extraordinarily stylized treatment of the curves in her hair
00:30:25
Speaker
which really does remind me of the treatment of something one would see in a poster.
00:30:29
Speaker
That's fascinating.
00:30:30
Speaker
So there are influences both from the most three-dimensional art form, that is sculpture, and then the most two-dimensional art form, which is graphic design.
00:30:39
Speaker
That's absolutely right.
00:30:42
Speaker
What I have omitted to say regarding this jewel is that quite apart from the decoration which is borne on the back of the pendant, it also bears a
00:30:54
Speaker
brooch fitting.
00:30:55
Speaker
So the jewel can be worn in its detached form from the chain work as a brooch.
00:31:03
Speaker
by removing the two bolt rings at the top of the pendant.
00:31:08
Speaker
One can wear it as a very long sautoire form of chain work.
00:31:13
Speaker
This chain is over a meter long, and it is definitely the longest chain I have ever seen in René Lalique's work.
00:31:22
Speaker
And interestingly, it can be worn as both, because one of the great fashions at the time was to wear jewelry in such a way that the chain work could create
00:31:33
Speaker
rather artistic loops to it.
00:31:36
Speaker
And what one can also do is actually hang the chain work around the neck and rather than let the pendant hang, actually raise it to the throat and pin it there.
00:31:48
Speaker
Because by so doing, you would then create two very artistic arches either side of the brooch.
00:31:56
Speaker
It also means that it
00:31:58
Speaker
would be seen at a height where it could be admired because obviously in its long form it hangs so low that one really misses out on the iconography.
00:32:07
Speaker
And it's very possible that that is how it was worn in its time.
00:32:11
Speaker
That's interesting because to see a jewel made that way today, one would think it was convertible, that it was intended to be worn either as a brooch or as a pendant.
00:32:21
Speaker
But in this case, maybe it was both at the same time.
00:32:25
Speaker
I believe it could have been born as both at the same time.
00:32:29
Speaker
It's also intriguing that this very long type of chain work would have been very suited to the new fashions of the day because with the very fashionable designer Charles Worth who started creating dresses that did not require the
00:32:50
Speaker
wearing necessarily of corsets and actually were straight down to the ground, these very elongated forms would have been perfectly adapted to wearing very long necklaces.
00:33:05
Speaker
And when one looks at the fashions of about 1900, 1905, it's exactly that, almost a kind of Greek style dress in terms of no wasting.
Evolution of Jewelry Design and Fashion Trends
00:33:17
Speaker
And therefore, perhaps this is very much the precursor of those long sort of necklaces one finds.
00:33:24
Speaker
during the annual file of the 1920s as well.
00:33:27
Speaker
So there's an awful lot going on in the design of this jewel and the iconography of this jewel.
00:33:35
Speaker
The way it relates, in fact, in terms of art, be they painting or pastel, I have to say there's something very much about this attitude of this female figure with her eyes open
00:33:50
Speaker
closed in a kind of mystical mood, which reminds me very much of the pastels of the symbolist artist Audino Rodon, actually created some five, ten years later.
00:34:07
Speaker
And similarly, in his pastels, you find female figures to about, drawn to about this length, bust length, but totally enveloped with floral motifs, very vivid colors, but they have a mystical presence to them.
00:34:23
Speaker
And he was one of the foremost symbolist artists, if you like.
00:34:30
Speaker
And it's almost as if Lalique was a kind of precursor to this,
00:34:36
Speaker
I can only assume that Rodin would have been familiar with Lalique's work of art because everybody knew Lalique in 1900.
00:34:45
Speaker
His display caused such a sensation.
00:34:48
Speaker
It was something that the world had never been seen before and the fact that so many artists actually chose his stand as a basis for some of their most famous works of art.
00:35:02
Speaker
There's a particular graphic artist called
00:35:05
Speaker
Félix Vallotton, who actually created this extraordinary black and white rendition of people just literally looking into his stand.
00:35:14
Speaker
And what you see is his stand in the background and all these bodies literally staring into the showcase in total astonishment.
00:35:24
Speaker
And one can understand why it caused such a sensation then, because the descriptions...
00:35:31
Speaker
at the time are very, very detailed and speak of bats hanging from the ceiling of his stand and gauze backdrops and furthermore, the front
00:35:45
Speaker
balcony area of his stand, as it were, consisted of several bronzes of female figures that appeared to be turning into something far more grotesque, carried out in the entire work.
00:36:01
Speaker
These are pictured in Vivera's book.
00:36:03
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:36:04
Speaker
They're very striking.
00:36:05
Speaker
They're very striking.
00:36:07
Speaker
And one's had the opportunity to actually see some of them come up separately for sale.
00:36:12
Speaker
And I believe there might be one even in the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon.
00:36:16
Speaker
Okay.
00:36:17
Speaker
They are monumental.
00:36:19
Speaker
And one can understand the surprise of people when they actually first saw these, because this was such a long way from the traditional displays of jewelry at the time.
00:36:30
Speaker
One of the reasons why people so gravitated towards his stand was that Lalique was able to borrow back from one of his major patrons, Kalouskoubenkian, some pieces that he had made for him.
00:36:44
Speaker
Now I have to say Kalouskoubenkian was an Armenian banker who had very quickly recognised the extraordinary talent and imagination of René Lalique and acquired works from him
00:36:58
Speaker
that were not going to ever be worn, they were actually going to be displayed on walls.
00:37:04
Speaker
in the middle of his collection of Holbein's, Ingres, and other such masterly painters.
00:37:12
Speaker
So moving even further now in the direction of art, maybe in contrast to jewellery.
00:37:17
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:37:18
Speaker
I mean, even Kadosko Beggin himself saw them as works of art immediately.
The Role of Patronage in Creative Freedom
00:37:25
Speaker
And so not only did he acquire some of the pieces that René Lalique had made, but he was also...
00:37:33
Speaker
able to commission works from René Lalique, where Lalique had full knowledge that he could let his imagination go wild because they actually could be totally unwearable.
00:37:44
Speaker
And this explains, for instance, one of the wilder pieces
00:37:50
Speaker
in the Caduce Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon, which consists of a tiara composed of a cockerel's head clutching an amethyst.
00:37:59
Speaker
Fantastic chokers decorated with lakes consisting of opal and the tree trunks shimmering in chase gold.
00:38:13
Speaker
One also found corsage ornaments consisting of
00:38:20
Speaker
intertwined snakes which suspended ropes of pearls from their gaping jewels that measured half a meter long and all these rather macabre types of jewels that I don't think any woman would have liked to wear.
00:38:36
Speaker
Those might fit in on the red carpet these days.
00:38:39
Speaker
Well, who knows?
00:38:41
Speaker
I mean, certainly if one wanted to cause a sensation, this was a huge feather in René Lalique's cap, that he was able to...
00:38:51
Speaker
create these extravagant works of art that were being entirely financed, that were being borrowed back for exhibitions and therefore was a great sort of publicity coup for him, but that he did not have to have his work defined by the fact that it had to be wearable.
00:39:13
Speaker
I think that makes a very big difference.
00:39:16
Speaker
And these are the works, frankly, that are his most famous still today.
Wortski's Approach to Antique Jewelry
00:39:21
Speaker
One of the things that's always been interesting to me about Wortski is how well-researched all of your objects are.
00:39:29
Speaker
And I'll say to listeners that if you have the opportunity to visit Wortski in their shop or at one of the shows where they exhibit, if you pick out a piece that you like the looks of and ask about it,
00:39:46
Speaker
odds are you'll hear a wonderful story about it.
00:39:49
Speaker
And that storytelling, I think, is such an important part of being a dealer in antiques and jewelry, to be able to sell not just the object, but the aura and the history and the people who have owned it and used it.
00:40:06
Speaker
Is that part of what draws you to the discipline?
00:40:11
Speaker
Yes, in fact, my encounter with Walski was a totally chance one because I had studied history of art and I wanted to work with paintings and sculpture.
00:40:22
Speaker
And it's quite by chance that I found myself being interviewed at Wart's Key, which I thought at the time was a picture gallery.
00:40:29
Speaker
Oh, right.
00:40:31
Speaker
Because we never use the word jewellery in publicizing a position for security reasons.
00:40:38
Speaker
And I therefore thought that's where I was coming to for my interview and was absolutely amazed to find
00:40:45
Speaker
The only work of art in terms of paintings was one of Queen Alexandra.
00:40:49
Speaker
That's hilarious.
00:40:50
Speaker
And I had never heard of Carl Fabergé.
00:40:53
Speaker
I was a total hippie and had no desire at all to look at jewellery, never mind work with it.
00:40:59
Speaker
Really?
00:41:00
Speaker
And was incredibly fortunate in working with two people like Kenneth Snowman and Geoffrey Munn, who was embarking on his first book at the time, because their knowledge was...
00:41:14
Speaker
monumental, but more than anything their passion was contagious.
00:41:19
Speaker
They were incredibly generous with their knowledge and they encouraged me to pursue any form of research that I wanted to in my own time, if I were interested in anything, and slowly began to really look at jewellery for myself, not from a gemological point of view, because I was always very much drawn to the artistry of jewellery.
00:41:41
Speaker
And it was the craftsmanship involved and the techniques that really drew me, as well as the inspiration behind the pieces.
00:41:48
Speaker
I want to wrap up by asking a couple of questions that I ask all of my guests.
00:41:53
Speaker
And one of those is for a piece of advice that you would give to a collector who's just starting out in the field, someone who's maybe just encountered Lalique or Art Nouveau, someone who's just getting interested in jewelry of any kind.
Advice for New and Experienced Collectors
00:42:10
Speaker
What's a piece of advice that you would give to someone who's just feeling their way into this area?
00:42:17
Speaker
I would say handle as much as you possibly can.
00:42:21
Speaker
One can read as many books as are available, one can look at as many images on the internet as you'd care to, and of course now that's a very useful tool, but it's the handling of the piece in the end that will give you the most possible information, examine exactly how it was put together, how many
00:42:42
Speaker
techniques are involved in the work, how was it built up, the weight, the choice of materials, nothing is chance.
00:42:49
Speaker
So it's by handling as much as you can and being able to compare pieces that really is how you learn the most.
00:43:02
Speaker
Be brave.
00:43:03
Speaker
Walk into jewellery shops, however intimidating they look.
00:43:06
Speaker
Go and handle whatever you can before auctions that are available to you.
00:43:14
Speaker
It does take bravery because I know that I was very shy about doing such things myself.
00:43:19
Speaker
But that is really the only way to learn.
00:43:23
Speaker
It's the hands-on experience.
00:43:25
Speaker
The more you handle, the more you can also tell whether something has been tampered with in some way.
00:43:30
Speaker
Whether you feel whether the texture of something feels slightly awry.
00:43:35
Speaker
Whether you suspect it may have been re-enamelled, for instance.
00:43:40
Speaker
Whether marks, maker's marks, date marks...
00:43:46
Speaker
may be superimposed, where the certain marks may have been etched out even.
00:43:53
Speaker
The most abominable things happen that you would never guess at when you're starting out.
00:43:58
Speaker
And I think it's only by close examination that you will learn the most.
00:44:03
Speaker
But it does take a lot of bravery.
00:44:06
Speaker
I'm very well familiar with that.
00:44:08
Speaker
But there are plenty of friendly jewellery dealers.
00:44:11
Speaker
Well, we pride ourselves on being friendly jewellers.
00:44:14
Speaker
I mean, I have hugely benefited from that myself.
00:44:18
Speaker
And we've helped so many people in their projects and thesis that they might be writing.
00:44:24
Speaker
And, you know,
00:44:26
Speaker
We feel so blessed ourselves that we were given this chance to work with people who are so generous with their knowledge.
00:44:35
Speaker
the more information that you can give out about things and help people, it always comes back to you.
00:44:41
Speaker
Somebody will remember you and will be thrilled to show you when they have something interesting that you can learn from, that you will feel as passionate about as they do.
00:44:51
Speaker
And that is something that really, I hope, is part of the Walski ethic, is really trying to communicate to people why we are passionate about the pieces that we were lucky enough to have.
00:45:05
Speaker
Now for more experienced collectors who might be listening right now, what's a mistake that you sometimes see experienced collectors make that you would caution against?
00:45:17
Speaker
I think one starts off as a collector, one inevitably starts off fairly modestly because your means are probably quite modest when you start off.
00:45:28
Speaker
And then as you learn, your tastes become more and more refined and one becomes braver about buying more significant pieces.
00:45:36
Speaker
What can then be difficult is actually refining your collection to rid yourself of the first pieces that you acquired.
00:45:43
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:45:44
Speaker
Because they may have all sorts of rather nostalgic connotations to them, because it's the first piece you bought at all.
00:45:51
Speaker
But there's no doubt that what makes the strength of a collection is the universal strength of the pieces.
00:45:59
Speaker
And sometimes one comes across collections where there are, let's say, five or six masterpieces.
00:46:06
Speaker
And then there are maybe more pieces that are
00:46:11
Speaker
more modest or middling pieces.
00:46:14
Speaker
And I would always urge a collector, if they can, to perhaps just go for the very best, because in the end, it's the very best that will really hold their own in whatever context.
00:46:28
Speaker
Well, Catherine and Prissel, thank you so much for joining me.
00:46:30
Speaker
It's been a real pleasure talking.
00:46:32
Speaker
It's been my pleasure too.
00:46:33
Speaker
Thank you.
00:46:43
Speaker
Curious Objects is sponsored by Rinalda House Museum of American Art, one of the nation's most highly regarded collections of American art, on view in the unique domestic setting of the 1917 R.J.
00:46:53
Speaker
Reynolds Mansion.
00:46:54
Speaker
Browse the art and decorative arts collection at rinaldahouse.org, that's R-E-Y-N-O-L-D-A house.org, and visit in person in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
00:47:05
Speaker
That's all for today.
00:47:07
Speaker
Thanks so much for listening.
00:47:08
Speaker
I really hope you enjoyed it.
00:47:09
Speaker
I want to remind you one more time to go to themagazineantiques.com to look at some pictures.
00:47:13
Speaker
You won't regret it.
00:47:14
Speaker
And again, send any feedback you have to podcast at themagazineantiques.com.
00:47:20
Speaker
If you like what you heard, don't forget to leave a rating on iTunes or whatever app you're using to listen.
00:47:24
Speaker
It really helps me out.
00:47:26
Speaker
And make sure you're subscribed so that you get all the future episodes.
00:47:29
Speaker
We've got some great pieces coming up for you.
00:47:31
Speaker
In the meantime, Curious Objects is a podcast from the magazine Antiques.
00:47:35
Speaker
Today's episode was edited by Sammy Delati.
00:47:37
Speaker
Our music is by Trap Rabbit.
00:47:39
Speaker
And I'm your host, Ben Miller.
00:47:41
Speaker
Till next time.