1900-1984
Jacques Adnet was a furniture designer known for his Art Deco Modernist designs and was an icon of French Modernism. Distinctly avant garde, Adnet and was among the first to expect metal and glass to integrate with the structure and decoration of furniture. Adnet used exotic woods with a combination of metal, smoked or plain glass, leather, galuchat, continue >>

1885-1953
Born Joseph-Gabriel Rousseau, in a small village outside of Chartres to a farming family, Rousseau became interested in drawing at a very early age. He was also intensely interested in physics and chemistry, first attending Ecole Breguet, and in 1902 Ecole de Sèvres, where he meet the son of pâte-de-verre pioneer Henri Cros. Following continue >>

1796- 1875
Antoine Louis Barye was an accomplished artist and sculptor. Barye’s work is almost exclusively studies of wild animals, but he also produced equestrian groups as well as mythological figures. His animal sculptures are usually of a violent nature, his models are technically competent and based on studies of actual wild animals, both living continue >>

1863-1920
Maurice Bouval was born in Toulouse, France and was a student of the grand-master Alexandre Falguière who produced the Triumph of the Republic for the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Bouval was a prolific sculptor of functional bronzes such as table lamps, sconces, inkwells, candlesticks, salt cellars, covered boxes, and some non-functional continue >>

1880-1960
Edgar Brandt was a consummate artist-blacksmith who combined traditional forging methods with emerging technologies of the machine age such as torch welding and power hammers. While aligning art with industrial methods, Brandt produced objects d’art and embellished buildings and monuments in the Art Deco. Building on the pioneering work of continue >>

1886-1987
René Buthaud was seen as the most accomplished and important French ceramist of the Art Deco period, an opinion held to this day. He designed simple stoneware forms, made for him by local potters, and used crackle glazes with which to decorate them. He was also influenced by African tribal art, evident in those pieces where he used lusters continue >>

1862-1932
Francois Rupert Carabin, perhaps the most brilliant sculptor in wood of the Art Nouveau era, was also an accomplished photographer, medal-maker, and designer of ceramics. He was regularly invited to the Vienna Secession. Carabin’s work exemplified the Pantheist spirit in Art Nouveau, a movement that emphasized a return to unconventional, continue >>

Founded 1804
Maison Cardeilhac was founded by Antoine-Vital Cardeilhac in 1804. He traded at 14 and then 4 Rue du Roule, Paris and specialized in silver cutlery and table ware. During the 19th century the firm was handed down from father to son, Armand-Edouard, and continued to produce, with great success, pieces which were largely inspired by wrought continue >>

1866- 1940
Born in Paris, he studied with Jules Lefevre and Boulanger, and exhibited vast classically inspired paintings in the Salons of the Societe des Artistes Francais where he was awarded an Honorable Mention in 1885, another one in 1898, a Third Class Medal in 1891 and an Honorable Mention at the Expositions Universelles of 1889 and 1900. He continue >>

1856-1909
Alexandre-Louis-Marie Charpentier was a pivotal figure in the movement to unite the fine and decorative arts in France at the end of the 19th century. Aversatile, largely self-taught artist, Charpentier was a medalist, sculptor, and designer. Born in 1856 in a working class neighborhood in Paris, he was apprenticed to a decorative engraver at the continue >>

1846-1907
Born in Lemberg on May 23, 1846, Désiré Jean Baptiste Christian studied painting and later trained as a glass decorator. He became chief designer for Burgun, Schverer & Cie in 1885, and there developed a number of new techniques, in particular that of Décoration Intercalaive. This technique involved painting the design continue >>

1862- 1948
Edward Colonna, an Art Nouveau designer, had a rich and stimulating early career but success and publicity eluded him, and he was relegated to an obscure life. Colonna, a pseudonym for Klonne, was born May 11, 1862 near Cologne, Germany, to Karl Edouard Klonne, his father and his second wife, the former family servant Henriette Quack. Edward continue >>

Founded 1878
The famous Daum glass factory dates back to 1878 when Jean Daum, a lawyer with no glassmaking experience, took the Sainte-Catherine glassworks in Nancy as payment for an outstanding debt. His two sons soon became partners in the business, August in 1879 and Antonin in 1887. Auguste’s management and Antonin’s creative talent gave continue >>

1868-1943
Georges de Feure, born Georges Joseph van Sluÿters, was the son of an affluent Dutch architect living in Paris. De Feure was a versatile artist and designer, who created paintings, fine furniture, porcelain and pottery, art glass, leaded glass windows, carpeting, silverware and jewelry as well as many well-known graphic arts and posters. He continue >>

1887-1953
André Delatte founded a small glassworks at Jarville, near Nancy France in 1921, where he produced large quantity of glass vessels. Delatte specialized in high-quality cameo glass from the beginning. The two or three layered glass vessels had their design etched with hydrofluoric acid with little or no additional wheel-carving. continue >>

Founded 1922
The decorating firm of Dominique was established in l922 at 104 Faubourg Saint-Honore, Paris. Co-founded by Andre Domin, a self-taught artist, and Marcel Genevriere, a trained architect, the partnership got off to a resounding and rapid start. Within a year they were advertising a wide range of carpets, fabrics, furniture, and wrought-iron. continue >>

1876 - 1955
Born in Paris, Maurice Dufrène was preoccupied with designing things even as a child. He grew up collecting scrap pieces of wood, fabric and cardboard from his father’s wholesale commodities business and would work them into creations in his own make-shift atelier. While still a student at l'Ecole des Art Décoratifs, he began continue >>

1872-1944
Camille Fauré produced designs for Limoges, long famed for its enamels Born in Perigueux in 1872, he spent a long apprenticeship before setting up his own workshop at Limoges, where he worked for some fifty years. Fauré became Limoges most famous and talented enamel artist. He exhibited in the 1925 International Exhibition in Paris continue >>

1877-1941
The French crafts designer and decorator Paul Follot is an Art Deco traditionalist. His first designs were inspired by Neo-Gothic, though he gained his stride during the Belle Époque. He worked from 1901 to 1903 for La Maison Moderne, a gallery run by the art dealer Julius Meier-Graefe in Paris between 1899 and 1903, which sold both publications continue >>

1828-1911
Alphonse Fouquet was a French jeweler known for his firm’s Renaissance revival and Art Nouveau work. In 1839 Alphonse Fouquet entered the jewelry industry at the tender age of eleven, serving as an apprentice for Parisian jeweler Henri Meusnier. His mistreatment under Meusnier is now infamous. continue >>

1846-1904
French designer Emile Gallé is considered to be one of the driving forces behind the Art Nouveau movement. His naturalistic designs combined with innovative techniques made him one of the pioneering glass makers of the late 19th, early 20th century. Taking his inspiration from nature and plants along with a heavy Japanese design influence, continue >>

1867-1942
Architect. Designer. Renaissance man. Hector Guimard believed in the unique. His designs embody the essence of the French Art Nouveau movement, incorporating superb materials, fine design and carved wood in a curvilinear and plastic style; looking at once like soft twisted satin or a sinuous living plantform, yet totally balanced in its entirety. continue >>

1861-1947
Victor Horta was a leading architect and designer of Art Nouveau and his style inspired many modernist artists all over Europe. He also influenced the aesthetic ideals of the avant-garde group of artists in Belgium, such as "Les Vingt" and "La Libre Esthétique". After studying drawing, textiles and architecture at the continue >>

Founded 1885
The French artist Renee Lalique helped to define the aesthetic of the Art Nouveau movement with his masterful glass pieces and jewelry. Lalique's trademark style had fluid lines that resembled the movement of water and the colors he chose, such as plum, turquoise, yellow, and black made him a world-renowned artist and the indisputable master continue >>

1860-1912
François-Raoul Larche was a well-known Art Nouveau sculptor born in St.-Andrè-de-Cubzac. He began his studies in 1878 under François Jouffroy, Jean-Alexandre Falguière, and Eugène Delaplanche at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris. continue >>

1841- 1923
Agathon Léonard was the pseudonym of Van Weydveldt, a sculptor born in Lille in 1841. As a young man he studied under De La Planche at the School of Fine Arts in Lille. Soon he was elected to the Académie de Beaux-Arts in Lille. continue >>

1894- 1973
Boris Lovet-Lorski, sculptor, lithographer, and painter who contributed significantly to the American Art Deco movement, was born in Lithuania in 1894. Trained as an architect at the Royal Academy in Petrograd, Boris Lovet-Lorski was very aware of volume and structural space. His architectural background combined with other influences like the continue >>

1859-1926
Firmly rooted in the craft of woodwork and furniture-making, Louis Majorelle’s furniture subtly recalled the splendors of furniture from the 1700's. Majorelle often ornamented his pieces with gracefully sculpted gilt mounts, while the sinuous natural forms which inspired him suggested the C-scrolls of the Louis XV era. In an age when France continue >>

1860-1939
Alphonse Mucha is for many people synonymous with Art Nouveau. Mucha's works frequently featured beautiful healthy young women in flowing vaguely Neoclassical looking robes, often surrounded by lush flowers which sometimes formed haloes behind the women's heads. In contrast with contemporary poster makers he used paler pastel colors. continue >>

1837 - 1933
Louis Comfort Tiffany was a Renaissance man during a period of history known as the Gilded Age. As an artist of many media and decorative arts, his lengthy career, from the 1870's to the mid-1920's, spanned and shaped several design periods during a time of "experimentation, intense scrutiny of aesthetic ideals, and proliferation of new continue >>

1870- 1959
Almeric Walter was born in Sèvres in 1870 and is famous for his work in pâte-de-verre glass. His father and grandfather were painters of ceramic and Almeric grew up with a firm foundation in traditional artistic skills and methods. He received a lengthy training at the Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres which provided him with continue >>

Founded 1781
The Asprey firm was established in the late 18th century specializing in dressing cases, during the early 20th century the firm rose to fame for its jewelry and royal patronage. Founder William Asprey was the descendant of French Huguenots who fled to England to escape religious persecution. The family traditionally specialized in leatherworking, continue >>

Founded 1854
The Royal Asscher Diamond Company, began over 150 years ago as the I.J. Asscher Diamond Company in 1854 at Tolstraat 27 in Amsterdam, founded by Joseph Isaac Asscher, a famed diamond artisan well known in the field. continue >>

1850- 1932
Louis Aucoc was a renowned nineteenth-century French jeweler and goldsmith who came from a family of established goldsmiths. In 1877 he bought the Parisian firm “Lobjois” and changed its name to “La Maison Aucoc.” The firm excelled due to Aucoc’s winning personality and his great skill as a goldsmith and refined continue >>

1900-1983
Suzanne Belperron was an iconic Parisian jewelry designer who insisted “Mon style est ma signature.” Her jewelry embodies a sensual elegance as well as an intellectual fascination that appealed to a sophisticated clientele from socialites to stage and screen stars. Working until the 1960’s she never signed a piece believing continue >>

Founded 1810
Black, Starr & Frost is one of the oldest operating jewelry houses in America. Founded in 1810 by Erastus Barton and Frederick Marquand it was originally named Marquand and Barton located near New York’s Maiden Lane. The firm added and lost partners numerous times; it also frequently moved locations, depending on the whereabouts continue >>

Founded 1890
René Boivin, an expert goldsmith and engraver bought his first jewelry workshop in 1890 and established the house of Boivin. His marriage to Jeanne Poiret in 1893 was critical to his success in the jewelry industry as Jeanne was a savvy business partner and had numerous connections with Paris’ fashion elite. Jeanne Poiret’s continue >>

Founded 1858
Since its very beginning, Boucheron has carved out a place for itself among the great names as a reference of French luxury in the very exclusive world of designer jewelry. Boucheron’s work spanned multiple design eras, notably Art Deco, Art Nouveau, and Second Empire styles. Though he started with little capital and a small stock of continue >>

Founded 1919
The Italian firm of Buccellati is famous for textural gold jewelry and exquisite silver objects. The main design accomplishments of the Buccellati firm span four decades: from the 1920’s to the 1960’s. The pieces are bold and instantly recognizable, with a style that references the great goldsmiths of the Renaissance. continue >>

Founded 1884
Bulgari has been setting the pace for Italian jewelry styles for over a century, drawing inspiration from the timeless beauty of Greek and Roman art, while lending a contemporary edge to the innovative pieces. The Bulagri family is descended from an Ancient family of Greek silversmiths from a small village called Epirus. In 1879 founder Sotirio continue >>

Founded 1837
The House of Peacock first opened its doors on February 9, 1837, the same year Chicago (population 4,000) was incorporated as a city. According to one historian, the opening of the city's first retail jewelry establishment in the small frame building on Lake Street marks Chicago's passing "from semi-savage conditions to civilization and continue >>

Founded 1847
The name Cartier is synonymous with beautiful objects of quality and style. Although Cartier is perhaps better known for fine jewelry, their signed wristwatches have made a huge impression on the global watch market and have become increasingly collectable over the years. Many of the fabulous watches can be regarded as pieces of jewelry in their continue >>

Founded 1815
One of the distinguishing characteristics of the 19th century was a reverence for the past. This was the age of the Grand Tour, when the popular imagination was sparked by visions of antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance as the refined upper classes returned home bursting with information and purchases from their trips abroad. In continue >>

1935-1979
Donald Claflin was born in Massachusetts and trained at the Parsons School of Design in New York. He began work as an illustrator and textile designer and moved into jewelry at David Webb, before joining Tiffany & Company in 1966. His eleven years as a designer at Tiffany & Co. continue >>

Founded 1780
The founder of Chaumet, Marie-Etienne Nitot had worked with the jeweler to Queen Marie-Antoinette before opening his own shop in 1780. He quickly gained an aristocratic clientele and reputation. From 1802 onwards Nitot and his son Francois Regnault, were Napoleon’s personal jewelers, creating symbols of power and exuberance for the Emperor continue >>

Founded 1965
Henry Dunay began his meteoric rise to the top of jewelry fame as a message boy for an elderly master goldsmith in New York. After apprenticing through his adolescence, Henry Dunay founded his company nine days after turning twenty-one. He went on to win 53 international awards for his designs, and became legendary for his craftsmanship and continue >>

1904-1923
The firm of Dreicer & Co. was one of the top luxury jewelry retailers in America during the first quarter of the 20th century. The firm is believed to have originated as J. Dreicer & Son representing the Parisian firm A. continue >>

1865-1937
The nature and artistic circumstances of Lucien Gautrait are mysterious. Little is known about Gautrait, and even records of his name are unreliable, ranging from the common ‘Lucien’ to some who referred to him as ‘Leopold’. The jewelry industry at the turn of the century was highly confusing, with no set regulations. continue >>

Founded 1912
The famous American firm of Oscar Heyman & Bros. can trace its origins back to the Fabrege workshop in Russia, where the brothers gained invaluable experience working with platinum and creating tools for the jewelry industry. Upon completion of their training in 1906, the elder brother’s immigrated to America to avoid military service. continue >>

Founded 1901
Maison Lacloche Frères was a retail business which selected its works from the top talented designers and workshops of Paris that the public was unaware of. Calling on workers for the great jewelers, Louis Girard, Georges Verger, Rubel, Georges Lenfant, Strauss-Allard-Meyer, and Halluin-Matlinger, the reputation of the firm as one of continue >>

Founded 1878
In his time, Joseph Marchak was considered by the people to be in the same league as the famous Russian goldsmiths Sazikov and Khlebnikov. One could come across his name as frequently as the famous brands Faberge and Bolin in the reports about the Nizhny Novgorod Fair of Art and Industry of 1896. Today, jewelry historians state that the works continue >>

Founded 1892
Herman Marcus immigrated to New York City from Germany in 1850 and found employment with Tiffany & Co. Years later after partnering and establishing multiple firms, Marcus’ partner George Jaques retired, and the firm of Marcus & co. was established by Herman Marcus, and his sons William and George Elder. continue >>

1949- Present Paloma Picasso is the youngest daughter of 20th-century artist, Pablo Picasso and painter/writer Françoise Gilot. Her own artistic career began in 1968 when she became a costume designer in Paris. After her rhinestone necklace designs, crafted out of inexpensive flea market finds, continue >>

Founded 1872
The French jewelry firm of Plisson et Hartz excelled at making jewelry in the Art Nouveau style, as well as gold chimerical and animal designs. Begun in 1872 by Plisson and partner Bottentuit, Plisson directed the firm alone from 1886 to 1898, when he was joined by longtime associate Hartz, the creative force behind their designs. Plisson continued continue >>

1907-1987
One of the twentieth century's most gifted artists, Jean Schlumberger created fantastic designs that transformed nature's wonders into objects of mesmerizing beauty. With gold and dazzling gemstones as his palette, he captured the glory of flowers, exotic birds and mythical creatures in bejeweled statements unrivaled in the world of jewelry design. continue >>

Founded 1945
Sterlé was a major award winning designer notable for his innovative approach to jewelry design using baguette-cut diamonds and colored gemstones in sweeping, curling lines. His love of nature played out in his favorite motifs: birds, flowers, leaves, arrows, feathers and bows. Sterlé’s designs epitomized the dynamics of continue >>

Founded 1837
Tiffany & Co. is one jewelry firm that really needs no introduction. Tiffany’s flagship store is located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City since 1940. The polished granite exterior is well known for its tiny window displays, and a 128. continue >>

Founded 1906
The Van Cleef & Arpels brand instantly conjures up the concept of diamonds, rare rubies, sapphires and emeralds. The high-jewelry house consistently strives to improve methods of cutting stones, mounting, and crafting pieces that are treasured through generations. Faithful to the spirit of their founders, each piece of Van Cleef & Arpels continue >>

Founded 1939
Off-beat and irreverent designs were Verdura's hallmark and enduring legacy. Verdura was an exceptional visual artist, and his drawings were remarkably accurate and detailed. At times, he seems to have been influenced by Faberge, but he also broke with American design standards to set entirely new trends. continue >>

Founded 1945
In the late 1940's on Manhattan’s Madison Avenue, the doors opened to the flagship store of one of America’s greatest jewelry manufacturers: David Webb. Webb’s designs are distinguished by a bold use of color, dimension, and meticulous attention to detail. David Webb is possibly best known for his enamel jewelry of animal continue >>

Founded 1932
The name of "Harry Winston" is known as one of the world's most prestigious jewelry companies. It is a name linked to most beautiful jewels, settings, and to luxury and exclusivity. Inspired by the endless energy of New York, Harry Winston opened his doors in 1932, and began a process of transformation, turning diamonds into art and continue >>

Founded 1922
Using only the highest quality gemstones and the most exquisite platinum mountings, Raymond Yard designed jewelry that not only took on an identifiable style of its own, but also elevated Art Deco jewelry to a new level. Raymond C. Yard differentiated itself from other jewelers in the art of rebuilding jewelry with its exquisite 20's and 30's continue >>