Studio: international art (35.1905)

The Lalique Exhibition

taught people to fashion
a ribbon or a delicate
aigrette in stones. This
form of the art was popu-
larised by the Exhibition
of 1867. Over a quarter
of a century passed, and
jewellery had not been
affected by the movement
towards art in its purer
forms which was setting in
in connection with other
objects of use and deco-
ration. The appearance of
M. Lalique started jewellery
upon a fresh chapter of its
history. His fancy is ad-
mitted, and also his know-
ledge and boldness. His
knowledge consisted of
what in Greece and Florence, in Byzantine art and
in the art of the Japanese, had by its beauty helped
to build up a store of noble tradition to which
he might turn. He realised the possibilities of
all this for the designer of to-day. M. Lalique
produced, as a result, his masterpieces. There
is in his work suggestions of the past to be
easily discovered, and yet originality is in every
one of his designs. M. Lalique broke away from
existing traditions, but it must not be thought that
he cut himself adrift from what had preceded him

BY R. LALIQUE

in the greater periods of the art of jewellery : he
drew closer to these periods, and, as they expressed
their time and the knowledge in the possession of
designers in that time, in his own art he sought
to find some expression for his own time, and
for all the knowledge which from the past as
a legacy remained to him. In the attempt to
widen the scope of his work he returned to
the uses of precious stones which his immediate
predecessors had despised. He re-introduced
enamels, which were the glory of the jewellery

EMBROIDERED COLLAR WITH SILVER ORNAMENTS

(By permission of Messrs. T. Agnew 6° Sons)

SILVER INKSTAND

(By permission of Messrs. T. Agnew &r3 Sons)

BY R. LALIQUE

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