GOLD CRAVAT PIN, FRÉDÉRIC BOUCHERON, 1890s

Designed as a textured gold serpent with cabochon emerald eyes, encircling an apple, signed F. Boucheron, French assay marks.

Cf: Boucheron, Four Generations of a World-Renowned Jeweler, Gilles Néret, Rizzoli New York, 1988.

 

Frédéric Boucheron was quick to capitalize on the revolutionary and newly emerging Art Nouveau movement. As early as 1893 he was utilising the organic themes of the movement with an emphasis on the pure form, rather than becoming over burdened with an excess of entrelac tendrils for fashion's sake. Lucien Hirtz (1864-1928) provided Boucheron with designs for more than 30 years, easily recognizable by their originality and exceptional craftsmanship. His stylized zoomorphic forms were widely admired at the Paris Exhibition of 1900. Although bearing no designer's mark, one can speculate that the pin may have been the work of someone like Lucien Hirtz or even Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939), the renowned Art Nouveau graphic artist and designer, who briefly collaborated with Boucheron's competitor Georges Fouquet in 1900.