Lalique glass has long been a world-famous brand,
internationally admired and still in production today under Swiss
ownership. But for René Lalique, it represented a second
commercially successful career.
Born in the Champagne region of France in 1860, by the turn of
the 20th century he had
already proved himself a highly creative artist jeweller producing
the distinctive Art Nouveau designs that won fame and admirers for
their ground-breaking use of non precious materials like horn and
glass.
But as the fashion for Art Nouveau peaked, Lalique moved on. The
first decade of the new century saw him produce glass bottles for
François Coty and other perfumiers from a small atelier. These
modest experiments in branded packaging led in 1913 to a factory at
Combs- La-Ville in south east of Paris where he began the mass
production of the vases, ornaments, car mascots and light and
architectural fittings for which the Lalique firm is now so well
known.
Above: one of three large and
relatively unusual Perruches vases (no. 876) from a 1919 design
which sold at Christie's South Kensington in May 2010. This 10.25in
(26cm) high example was engraved R. Lalique and sold at
£26,000.
After the Great War production expanded in 1921 to a much larger
factory at Wingen-Sur-Moder in Alsace, the newly regained region
which had an established reputation for producing French art
glass.
René Lalique's products, made by means of a combination of mould
and blown methods and in a variety of different finishes, embraced
both the clean lines of the new geometric style at the expense of
the sinuous curves of the 1900 style and the new power of electric
light. By the time of the landmark 1925 Exposition des Arts
Decoratifs, the Paris trade show that gave Art Deco its name,
Lalique was a well known name and a key participant. As well as his
own impressive stand, he designed decor for other exhibitors and a
mammoth glass fountain for the showground.
The late 1920s and 30s saw Lalique take on a number of major
architectural and interior decorating projects including chapels in
France and Jersey, the Orient Express train and the ocean
liner SS Normandie.
During World War II the Alsace factory was damaged and
production halted but resumed again after the war and René's death
in 1945 under his son Marc Lalique who oversaw the opening of a
renovated building in 1951. He also changed the composition of the
glass, renamed Lalique Cristal, which has a lower lead content.
There are many categories of Lalique to collect: perfume
bottles, vases and table ornaments, small boxes, drinking glasses,
a wide variety of light fittings, car mascots and, at a more
limited level, architectural elements.
Some of these have a broader crossover appeal like the car
mascots, which attract motoring enthusiasts, or perfume bottles
which appeal to scent bottle collectors.
Many of Lalique's designs were originally created in the 1920s
but proved enduring with large and long production runs (Lalique's
Bacchantes vase designed back
in 1927 is still being produced today). Many designs with evocative
names like Tourbillons
(whirlwinds), Formose (
goldfish) or Ceylan
(budgerigars) also appeared in a variety of different colours with
surface finishes ranging from opalescent to enamelled, stained,
polished and acid-etched.
Its worldwide reputation as luxury giftware long reinforced by
showrooms in major cities, Lalique has never completely gone out of
fashion. Nor has it ever been cheap.
However, it wasn't really until the 1960s when academics,
dealers and collectors started to get interested in Art Nouveau and
Deco as stylistic movements that vintage Lalique began to acquire a
collector's status and value. Demand for period Lalique has now
been with us for decades and it is a truly international market
with collectors across Europe, Asia, the Americas and the
Antipodes.
Nonetheless, there have been peaks and troughs in the
market.
Fuelled in part by Japanese demand, prices were very high in the
1980s and '90s. But Far Eastern demand fell away towards the end of
the 20th century and the
specialist Lalique auctions, pioneered in the late 1970s in the US
and a regular feature in London by the 1980s, dropped out of the
frame.
But prices have been rising again in the last few years and with
it the specialist sale has returned. In London they are currently
held at Christie's and Bonhams while Heritage mount an annual
auction in New York.
The most expensive pieces of Lalique tend to be René Lalique's
cire perdue works -
unique creations cast by the lost wax process that necessitates
that the mould is broken in use. Understandably, cire perdue
Lalique exists in very small numbers.
Beyond this, values are linked to scarcity determined by such
factors as length of production, colours, special finishes, subject
matter and the crispness of the moulding.
The amount of coloured Lalique is much smaller than clear. An
opalescent finish is seen as more desirable than a monochrome
version and figural subjects tend to be most popular.
Above: the Reynard/Fox mascot
(model No.1182) is among the rarest of all the Art Deco car mascots
produced by René Lalique. This example came up for sale at
Wiederseim Associates of Chester Springs, Pennsylvania in November
2011 and sold for $175,000 (£119,000).
Condition is paramount in Lalique collecting. Chips and cracks
will severely reduce the value.
Occasionally elements of the interior decorating commissions
undertaken by Lalique come onto the market and these rarities make
very substantial sums, like his glass panels for the dining car of
the Cote D'Azur Pullman Express sold in Paris by Christie's last
year or the Moineaux
(Sparrows) glass doors created for the dining room of Channel
Islands patron Lady Trent, which realised €1.75m (£1.59m) in
Sotheby's Paris rooms in November 2011.
At the other end of the scale, tablewares, especially plates,
dishes, small ashtrays or glasses that were produced in large
numbers are still available for relatively little outlay. As a
general rule, post-War Lalique is less expensive that the pre-War
pieces, with pieces by the factory's modern incarnation Lalique
Cristal selling for a fraction of their retail prices on the
secondary market.
Dating and identification of Lalique is complex. The Lalique
glass trademark can be moulded, engraved, etched or stencilled and
takes various forms. There are some generalisations on dating such
as the cessation of the 'R' in front of Lalique following René's
death but even this is not completely hard and fast. In short,
familiarity with the product and specialist knowledge is required
to date a piece accurately.
René Lalique, catalogue
raisonné by Félix Marcilhac, 2011. ISBN
978-2-85917-510-8
The Glass of
Lalique by Christopher Vane Percy. ISBN 0 289
70801X
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