Perfume Bottles - Rene Lalique (1860 - 1945) French

In someways, Beardsley's broke through the different art movements of Sybolism and Art Nouveau with his strange obscessing for bondage and "perverted" sexual figures. Other members of the Art Nouveau movement took his flat lines and innovatedness and reinvintated it in their own style. Rene Lalique was at first a jewely designer. He used design elements and simiprecious stones rather than rubies or diamonds. The Art Nouveau swirls and female nudes were worked into his pieces.

His most famous work is perfume bottles. (L'Aire du Temp perfume by Nina Ricci still features frosted glass bird floating over the bottle of perfume.)

His earliest perfum bottles were the most beautiful, and collectable today. E'Elegance by D'Orsay, a perfume botttle designed by Lalique c. 1914. (today it is worth $4,700.00 in mint condition, signed by the artist.)

It is a very simple design of a square bottle and stopper made in frosted glass, shaped like a beehive. The bottle stands 5 1/2" tall, but it so exquistedly rendered, it's like jewelry for your dresser. You could set this piece down and have no other decorations.

The figures of two slender female forms, elegantly draped in gowns, swaying among flowers are in high relief. This is a piece where art and design meet - the premise of Art Nouveau - and remains timeless in it's astictic appeal.

Ouiatt Alexander Builski, c. 1927 is a perfume bottle also designed in dressed down elegance. The glass is clear and bell shaped, the screw on top is golden, and it looks like the shape is just approaching Art Deco - there are no vivid swirls or flowers, and the glass is very plain. It has the look of something stamped out of a mold, not hand crafted, There is a sun figure of aman with his whiskers rediating all around him as a sun burst. Lalique kept his designs simple and in harmorny. Many perfume bottle and jewelry pieces are inspired by him to this day.