Rene Lalique Art Nouveau Brooch ('Le Vol de la Pierre')

A robbery in miniature

At the center of the brooch is an octagonal peridot. On either side sits a glass plaque. Carved into the back of each plaque, and seen through the glass, are nude male figures working metal bars under the stone to pry it loose. On the front, in low relief, clothed figures react to the theft with gestures of despair. A border of old European-, single- and rose-cut diamonds frames the scene. The piece is signed Lalique and dated to about 1904.

A specialist at the sale read the scene as 'a sacked city where looters have come in and they're taking away the treasure, and the citizens on the sides are aghast.' The title, 'Le Vol de la Pierre,' means 'The Theft of the Stone.'

The joke is a pointed one. The gem everyone is fighting over is a peridot, a modest stone, while the value of the jewel lies in the carved glass around it. That inversion was Lalique's whole argument about jewelry.

Rene Lalique, the jeweler who put art above gems

Rene Jules Lalique was born on April 6, 1860, in Ay, in the Marne, and his family moved to Paris in 1862. Summers back in Ay gave him a lifelong attachment to natural forms. At sixteen he was apprenticed to the Paris jeweler Louis Aucoc, studied at the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs, and spent two years at art school in Sydenham, London.

Back in Paris he worked freelance, selling designs to houses including Cartier and Boucheron, and grew frustrated when clients balked at his more daring ideas. Accounts date his independence to 1885 or 1886; in 1886 he took over the workshop of Jules Destape and for the first time controlled both the design and the making of jewels under his own name.

His style drew on nature, on the Renaissance revival's human figures and colored enamels, and on Japanese art. He used materials jewelers had mostly ignored, such as horn, ivory, enamel and glass, and he let artistry outrank expensive stones. As the historian Henri Clouzot wrote in 1933, 'The intrinsic value of the materials was eclipsed by the excellence of artistic craftsmanship and the effort of creative imagination.'

The jeweler and historian Henri Vever wrote that every piece Lalique sent to the Salons 'took on the significance of an artistic event,' and French museums began showing his jewels beside paintings and sculpture. By 1912 he had largely given up jewelry for glass, the work for which he is best known today. He died in Paris in May 1945.

Little Rodins in glass

The muscular figures on this brooch have a family source. Lalique's father-in-law, Auguste Ledru, was employed in the studio of Auguste Rodin and produced at least some of the models used in Lalique's workshop; a specialist at the sale noted that his brother-in-law also worked for Rodin. 'It is almost like having mini Rodin sculptures, in glass, on your brooch,' the specialist said.

Henri Vever recorded that Lalique was the first French jeweler to use a medallist's reducing lathe, scaling large sculpted models down to jewelry size. That is why his tiny carved and molded figures are so well proportioned.

Glass came into his jewelry early. His interest in three-dimensional effects in enamel may have led him to glass, and he used lost-wax casting, adapted from bronze work, for his more elaborate glass creations. This brooch, with its reverse-carved plaques, sits exactly where his jewelry and his later glass career meet.

Paris at the height of Art Nouveau

Lalique's reputation was made around the turn of the century. He showed jewelry at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris, which opened on April 14 of that year, and a corsage ornament he showed there later went, in a variant, to his greatest patron, Calouste Gulbenkian. Gulbenkian bought almost two hundred works directly from Lalique between 1899 and 1927.

In 1902 Lalique moved to 40 Cours-la-Reine in Paris, where he displayed objects at his home and shop. His jewels were too fragile and eccentric for most women of the Belle Epoque; they were worn by a few figures such as the actress Sarah Bernhardt and the Countess Greffulhe.

The brooch dates to about 1904, the year Britain and France signed the Entente Cordiale and the Russo-Japanese War began. Three years later, in 1907, Lalique began designing perfume bottles for Francois Coty, the start of the turn toward glass that would define the rest of his career.

From a Chicago collection to a five-times result

The brooch's early owners are not published. It came to auction in New York on June 13, 2025, as lot 57 in a sale of high jewelry, one of four Art Nouveau jewels by Lalique from a collection in Chicago. The estimate was $30,000 to $50,000.

It sold for $279,400, more than five times the high estimate. The head of the jewelry department singled out signed jewels by Lalique, Schlumberger, Suzanne Belperron and Harry Winston as drawing remarkable enthusiasm in that sale.

The design was not unique to this example. A photograph of a similar brooch dated 1904, with identical glass panels but an emerald-cut white sapphire in place of the peridot and a slightly different frame, appears in Henri Vever's 'French Jewelry of the Nineteenth Century' and in Sigrid Barten's catalog of Lalique jewelry. A brooch of the same title, described as peridot, glass, diamond and enamel, signed Lalique and dated about 1904, has also been offered privately with its price on application; whether it is the same object is not stated.

The numbers

Carat weight

Not published

Center stone

Octagonal-shaped peridot; color and clarity not graded in the catalog

Diamonds

Old European-, single- and rose-cut; no weights given

Origin mine

Not disclosed

Glass

Two plaques, reverse carved with nude figures and decorated in bas relief with clothed figures

Maker

Rene Lalique; signed Lalique

Timeline

1. Apr 6, 1860

   Rene Lalique is born in Ay, in the Marne.

2. 1876

   At sixteen, Lalique is apprenticed to the Paris jeweler Louis Aucoc.

3. 1886

   Lalique takes over the workshop of Jules Destape and begins making jewelry under his own name.

4. 1899

   Calouste Gulbenkian begins buying directly from Lalique, eventually acquiring almost two hundred works.

5. 1900

   Lalique shows jewelry at the Exposition Universelle in Paris.

6. 1902

   Lalique moves to 40 Cours-la-Reine, Paris.

7. 1904

   Approximate date of the 'Le Vol de la Pierre' brooch; a similar brooch with a white sapphire is photographed and dated 1904.

8. 1907

   Lalique begins designing perfume bottles for Francois Coty.

9. 1912

   Lalique largely abandons jewelry to concentrate on glass.

10. May 1945

    Lalique dies in Paris.

11. Jun 13, 2025

    The brooch sells at auction in New York for $279,400, more than five times its $50,000 high estimate.

The world in 1904

• Feb 8, 1904

  A surprise Japanese naval attack on Port Arthur starts the Russo-Japanese War.

• Apr 8, 1904

  The United Kingdom and France sign the Entente Cordiale.

• Apr 30, 1904

  The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, a world's fair, opens in St. Louis.

• May 4, 1904

  Charles Rolls and Henry Royce meet for the first time in Manchester; U.S. Army engineers begin work on the Panama Canal.

• Jul 1, 1904

  The third modern Olympic Games open in St. Louis, the first held in the United States.

• Oct 27, 1904

  The first underground line of the New York City Subway opens.

• Dec 27, 1904

  The play Peter Pan premieres in London.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Rene Lalique Art Nouveau Brooch ('Le Vol de la Pierre') is number 38 of 100 in the jewelry entries of the FLOAT 100. 44 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (37 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The thieves are carved into the back of the glass, so you see them through the plaque, while the horrified onlookers are modeled on the front.
• Lalique's father-in-law worked in Auguste Rodin's studio and made some of the models used in Lalique's workshop.
• Lalique was, according to Henri Vever, the first French jeweler to use a medallist's reducing lathe to shrink sculpted models to jewelry size.
• A sister design dated 1904 used the same glass panels around an emerald-cut white sapphire instead of a peridot.
• Calouste Gulbenkian bought almost two hundred works directly from Lalique; his collection is on view in Lisbon today.
• Before he signed his own work, Lalique sold jewelry designs to other houses, including Cartier and Boucheron.