René Lalique Glass

Known for his more than 1,500 sensual glass objets d’art, decorative artist René Lalique (1860–1945) enjoyed an entirely different career before he realized his love of glass and gift for decorative glassware.

Born in the Marne region of France, Lalique was merely a teenager when he was invited to apprentice to well-known and -loved Parisian jeweler Louis Aucoc in 1876. Over the course of his training under Aucoc, Lalique also attended École des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and eventually departed his apprenticeship to study at an art college in London. Within only a few years of returning to Paris, Lalique became one of the city’s most in-demand freelance jewelry designers, heralded for his Art Nouveau pieces and signing contracts with such jewelry houses as Cartier and Boucheron.

By 1886, Lalique had opened his own jewelry shop in France’s capital. Soon afterward, he opened another workshop, where he began to experiment with glass.

Growing bored with jewelry making, Lalique turned his attention to crafting small glass objects, including ashtrays, cachets, paperweights and vases, among others. These works are today recognized as significant contributions to the era’s flourishing Art Deco movement. In fact, in the early 1900s, Lalique officially established his eponymous glassworks business.

In addition to finding inspiration for his designs in the natural world, Lalique also looked to the female form. In fact, one of his most recognizable pieces, 1927’s Bacchantes vase, features an array of Bacchantes, mortal female followers of Dionysus in Greek mythology, engaged in an eroticized dance around the vase’s rim. The vase is still in production, almost 100 years after Lalique designed it.

Find René Lalique’s iconic glassware, including the perfume bottles he created for perfumer François Coty and others, plus vases and more on 1stDibs.