Jewelry History

The Fascinating Double Life of Georges Fouquet

The jeweler produced exceptional Art Nouveau and Art Deco creations

by Marion Fasel

December 9, 2024—It doesn’t happen very often, but this season there is a Georges Fouquet jewel hitting the auction block. The bracelet is part of a private collection filled with treasures including 15 pieces by Belperron, that are being sold at Christie’s in New York on December 10.

Made in 1925, the Fouquet bold gold bracelet, lit up with a cabochon emerald, diamonds, orange topaz and black enamel, is resolutely modern like all of Fouquet’s Art Deco jewels. “It is uncompromising work,” is how Christie’s Senior Specialist and Vice President Claibourne Poindexter succinctly describes it.

Amazingly, Georges Fouquet was equally adept in producing Art Nouveau jewelry. It’s something no one else achieved in such a memorable a way. Part of the French jeweler’s success in two movements, what amounts to a double life in jewelry, came from his decision to work with artists.

A historic hire for Fouquet was Czech artist Alphonse Mucha. The multi-talented illustrator who worked as the French actress Sarah Bernhart’s creative director and was responsible for the lyrical posters promoting her performances throughout Paris, established for Fouquet the illustrative, bold jewelry mode that set the collection apart from the smaller scale of most Art Nouveau designs.

The collaboration between Fouquet and Mucha included theatrical jewels for Bernhart and pieces for the 1900 World’s Fair that established the Art Nouveau movement.

A sign of George Fouquet’s full commitment to Art Nouveau was the firm’s Mucha designed boutique located at 6 rue Royale, which is now installed in the Musée Carnavalet in Paris. All the furniture, jewelry cases and sculpture, like a peacock behind the counter, were built in and flowed from one element to the next.

The Fouquet flair for drama is demonstrated in a dragon corsage brooch, one of a series of 7 ½-inch-long jewels that were essentially the same shape and size as the diamond and platinum bodice brooches popular around 1900. But the similarities end there.

Fouquet’s corsage brooch is a mystical monster with a dark and light green enamel serpentine body snapped into a whiplash line. Mottled brown plique-à-jour enamel forms the wings. Moss agate, an emerald and pink freshwater pearls decorate various parts of the piece.

The Art Nouveau movement did not last too long. And Georges Fouquet moved on as style changed. Or perhaps a more accurate description would be that he helped drive the jewelry industry to Art Deco.

As president of the jewelry group at the 1925 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, Fouquet worked behind the scenes prodding his colleagues to do something new and different. He steered the selection committee to choose jewelers with a vision and he hand-picked an architect to design a striking pavilion for their work.

For his firm’s Deco designs, Fouquet chose once again to collaborate with artists on important statement pieces. Painter and poster artist, Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron, designed an extraordinary pair of Fouquet bracelets made in 1925, which appeared at a Christie’s auction in 2017. Variously cut lapis lazuli, coral, amethyst, and aquamarine make a creative geometric statement with large colored stones in the openwork gold setting.

The bold gold bracelet available at Christie’s tomorrow was made around 1925. It is signed on the interior in French “d’après dessin de A.léveillé,” which means after a drawing by A.léveillé, the artist André Léveillé.

The artist’s work has been described as cubist by art historians. While the bracelet isn’t exactly a cubist design, it does show a modern use of parallel and angled lines that is anything but Art Nouveau. Above all, the powerful piece illustrates just how creatively Georges Fouquet led his firm through two of the most important movements in the history of jewelry.

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