Dragonflies brooch

Although the French designer and artist René Lalique is best known for his glass vessels, he began his career working in jewellery. A defining figure of the art nouveau movement, he often depicted flora and insects with sinuous whiplash lines. Apprenticed between 1876 and 1878 to Louis Aucoc, an accomplished Parisian jeweller, he later went on to study at the Sydenham Art College in London, where he developed a love of naturalism in art. Lalique modernised jewellery in both his production processes and his use of precious and non-precious materials, including glass, which he backed with silver foil to create brilliant, gem-like jewellery.

For this work, Dragonflies brooch, 1903–05, two gold dragonflies interlock, with their wings outspread to frame a triangular opal. Plique-à-jour enamelling has been applied to the wings, mirroring their iridescence and acting as a foil to the lustrous qualities of the central opal. Lalique had a love of Australian opals; serious opal mining had begun in New South Wales in 1890 and it is believed that the Australian opal used in the brooch was likely obtained from the major supplier of opals in Europe, the town of Idar-Oberstein in Germany, where it was cut and polished.