Skip to content
René Lalique "Four Damselflies" Pendant Necklace
Created circa 1903-1904, this four damselfies pendant necklace is composed of enamel, aquamarines, diamonds and rubies, mounted in 18K gold. It is designed as damselflies plique-à-jour enamel wings and basse taille enamel bodies, all highlighted with paillons, in varying shades of blue and green, alighting on a rectangular step-cut aquamarine pool, with pear-cut aquamarine pendant, suspended from a delicate baton link chain with conforming enamel, the reverse chased and engraved. Lalique's artful evocation of this scene of delicate insects and their watery habitat captures a transient and serene moment in nature.
- Product Details
- Curator's Notes
Item #: YN-21573
Artist: René Lalique
Country: France
Circa: 1903-1904
Materials: One rectangular step-cut aquamarine ; One pear-cut aquamarine; Plique-à-jour and champlevé enamel; 20 circular-cut rubies (approximate total weight 0.40); 18K Gold
Signed: LALIQUE
Literature: A design for a similar pendant depicting four dragonflies, dating from 1903-1904,is pictured in René Lalique: Schmuck und Objets d'Art: 1890-1910, p. 343, cat no. 730.
By 1903-1904, Lalique had absorbed many aspects of the Japanese sensibility, and applied them in revolutionary ways to his jewelry practice, which incorporated pioneering enamel techniques. By this date, Lalique had moved his premises again to a spacious 5-floor building at 40 Cours-la-Reine, a section of the boulevard running along the Right Bank (now renamed Cours Albert 1er). As part of the renovation, Lalique added tall glass entrance doors with high relief glass panels depicting pine cones and branches. Sigrid Barten writes that the tall windows of the elevated ground floor, where the showroom was located, offered a view of the Seine. The workshops, accessed by a very small door, were located in the reverse of the building, where large, high windows admitted the light necessary for the jewelers to work.