“I developed an appreciation of Lalique when I started going to a Saint-Ouen flea market in the north of Paris. A few steps away from the Sacré-Coeur Basilica and Moulin Rouge, Les Puces is known as one of the largest flea markets in the world. It’s one of my favourite places to go shopping in Paris, packed with antique jewellery, furniture, old books, records and vintage clothes. I got to know some of the antique dealers and in doing so became familiar with the work of designers and artists who were hugely important to 20th century design.
René Lalique started primarily as a jewellery designer, but it is his perfume bottles that I came to love and have started collecting. Today, Lalique has become an international brand known for producing jewellery, perfume, glassware – and in 2011 introduced brand new collections of furniture, home accessories and household linen.”
Tessa Ferguson, Residential Land’s Head of Interior Design.
René Lalique designed this bottle for Rallet’s Soir Antique perfume circa 1927, and it’s a stunning example of his work. It sold for £3000 at Sheffield Auction Gallery in 2011.
Lalique’s perfume designs were quintessentially art deco in style, often boldly shaped and crowned with oversized decorative stoppers – sometimes more than one per design. This particular bottle, as an early design, places emphasis on intricate floral patterns and the flowing lines of its figural etchings.
The figures themselves provide a risqué frisson, depicting a lusty satyr driven wild by the presence of a woman writhing in ecstasy, au naturel. He is reaching towards (and perhaps even tickling) her armpit, drawing himself toward her upper arm to inhale her scent. In many ways, it can even be seen as a gender-reversed precursor to the (somewhat less refined) adverts that have cemented the infamy of contemporary deodorant Lynx.
Lalique-designed antique perfume bottles are now highly sought after, and even more so if they still contain their original contents – a quick google of such bottles reveals that those containing liquid often take on a very different quality to those that are empty, the subtle colours of their contents making the glass almost luminous in highlighting the detailed patterning.
Perfume bottles now may seem extravagant, but looking back to the past offers a glimpse of designers that elevated packaging to an art form.
Image courtesy of Sheffield Auction Gallery
