Imaginative and mystical Art Nouveau period was from 1890-1919. It featured free-flowing, curving lines with asymmetrical natural motifs, such as human, female faces, greatly influenced by Japanese art. It used gemstones to emphasize their beauty, preferring pearls and cabochon opals and moonstones rather than faceted stones, and employed colourful enamelling.

In many ways, the movement was in response to the Industrial Revolution and aesthetic opportunities created by technological advances. Some, however, rejected the idea of mass-produced designs and sought to apply the highest standards of craftsmanship to everything from buildings and furniture to jewelry, textiles and pottery. Effectively blurring the line between the fine arts and the decorative arts.

The Edwardian and Art Nouveau movements overlapped with both emerging during the final decade of the 1890's.

The 1890's was a period of rapid colonial expansion, opening the door to a multitude of exotic ideas and designs. A whole new century was about to begin and creativity and originality flourished. Art Nouveau jewelers were less concerned with valuable gemstones than with overall effect. New jewelry materials were introduced such as horn and other materials were used: amber, ivory, opals, pearls, glass, as well as other precious and synthetic stones. Platinum was used along with gold and silver.

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Estate Art Nouveau jewelry is expressive, exotic and exuberant. Art Nouveau means "new art" in French, the name being derived from a gallery for interior decoration opened by Samuel Bing in Paris in 1896, called the "Maison de l'Art Nouveau". It was introduced in England circa 1890, mainly as a product of the movement started by William Morris and the pre-Raphaelites, which spread to the Continent and America. It came to an end with the outbreak of World War I.

In Art Nouveau, nature was a central theme. Dreamy, exotic feminine figures were also depicted with long flowing hair.

The art nouveau movement motto was "Art for all, and Art everywhere." In this movement art took on the forms of living things, trees, flowers, dragonflies, insects, swans, snakes, plants, nature and the female body. Many forms were both stylized and exaggerated. It is not that the art created was earthy, instead the art had curvilinear forms like those occurring in nature.

Art Nouveau designers/jewelers also employed a pastel color palette much like the Impressionists.

This picture below showcases Rene Lalique Jewelry.



Most significant was the use of enameling. Some pieces were completely covered in enamel, some had areas etched away and filled with enamel, while many others used the plique-a-jour method - an open window in the jewelry was filled with the enamel paste and baked in an oven that reached 1000 degrees. This process was repeated up to twenty times for the enameling to get its toughness and color, giving the finished piece an appearance of stained glass windows.

The greatest Art Nouveau designer was Rene Lalique, who earned a worldwide reputation as a master of the plique-a-jour method. His creations, like most of the Art Nouveau jewelry, were mostly made by hand. Many of these pieces were considered works of art more than jewelry. In fact many of them can only be viewed in Art Galleries and Museums. Art Nouveau, having only lasted around 15 years, has been compared to a rare exotic flower that bloomed for only a brief time.



The Dragonfly Woman corsage ornament is considered by many to be his masterwork. It was purchased by the wealthy collector Calouste Gulbenkian; his wife was the only person ever to have worn it. It would have moved with her -- the long spine is articulated and the wings hinged to flutter. In that sense, and in its finely observed detail, Lalique's piece has a remarkable degree of naturalism.


Libelulle 1897 - 1898
gold, enamel, chrysoprase, moonstones, and diamonds

Georges Fouquet was one of the leading creators of Art Nouveau jewels in both the Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles. In 1896, when he became head of the family's Parisian jewelry firm, he introduced a new aesthetic characterized by sensuous forms, dramatic imagery, and a vivid, poetic symbolism.

He also abandoned the all-white look of high style jewelry, preferring gold, colored enamels, and semi-precious stones over platinum and diamonds. In 1898 he began a fruitful collaboration with the designer Charles Desrosiers, who designed nearly all of the pieces made by the firm between 1898 and 1914.



Charles Desrosiers began to employ the master enameller Etienne Tourette, who was known for creating shimmering effects (sometimes by etching the surface of the enamel with acid), and for his enamels with tiny inclusions of gold leaf (paillons).

For his second wife, Augustine-Alice Ledru, Lalique designed this powerfully evocative necklace, around the turn of the century. The repeats of the main motif - an attenuated female nude whose highly stylized curling hair swirls around her head and whose arms sensuously curve down to become a border enclosing enamel-and-gold swans and an oval cabochon amethyst - are separated by pendants set with fire opals mounted in swirling gold tendrils.



Necklace, ca. 1900

Gold, enamel, Australian opal, Siberian amethysts; Overall diam. 9-1/2 in. (24.1 cm) 9 large pendants: H. 2-3/4, W. 2-1/4 in. (7 x 5.7 cm) 9 small pendants: H. 1-3/8, W. 1-1/4 in. (3.5 x 3.2 cm)

Gift of Lillian Nassau, 1985 (1985.114)

Above: Georges Fouquet was one of the leading creators of jewelry in both the Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles.

This exhibition includes about 120 works by the leading designers and fabricators of late nineteenth- to early twentieth-century Art Nouveau jewelry. Although many of these artists acquired their skills in traditional, high-style jewelry houses, they found inspiration in the work of the Pre-Raphaelites, the philosophy of John Ruskin (1819-1900), the paintings and poetry of the symbolists, and the arts of Japan. For motifs, they looked to the flora (orchids, lilies) and fauna (dragonflies, butterflies) of the natural world and the sensuality of the female form. This new aesthetic was, in large measure, a reaction against nineteenth century historicism, industrialization, and the "tyranny of the diamond," and these Art Nouveau artists chose to interpret nature rather than imitate it.

In addition to works by Lalique, jewelry by Georges Fouquet (1862-1957), Eugène Feuillâtre (1870-1916), and Lucien Gaillard (1861-1933) is shown, as are paintings, sculpture, prints, posters, textiles, and decorative arts from the period.