Frederic Boucheron
(1830 - 1902)
Frederic Boucheron was born in 1830 into a family of drapers. From an early age, Boucheron wanted to be a jeweler and at age 14 Boucheron entered into an apprenticeship with jeweler Jules Chaise. He later worked
for Tixier-Deschamps, a famous jeweler at the Palais Royal. Boucheron was founded on September 30, 1885, the success of The House of Boucheron was immediate.
Boucheron’s first designs were gaudy and ornate resembling the styles of Louis XVI: flowery garlands, roses, quivers, arrows, knots and intertwining ribbons. Frederic Boucheron started a new trend designing thistle-heads, plane tree leaves and rustic bouquets of flowers, which were pinned to the fronts of bodices, or made into chokers or chatelaines. Boucheron was opened to new ideas and inventions and started using simple materials (rock crystal or wood) with the rarest of precious stones.
In 1893, Boucheron became the first jeweler to open a shop in Place Vendome. His exclusive clientele included royalty such as the Tsar of Russia, the Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrova, Queen Isabella of Spain and the Duchess of Rothschild; actresses such as Hortense Schneider, Sarah Bernhardt, Mlle Réjane and very wealthy personalities as the Vanderbilts.
In 1867 and 1889, Boucheron participated in the Universal Exhibition and was recognized with various awards. During the 1890s, Boucheron opened branches in Moscow and New York. He also participated in the national exhibitions in Vienna, Antwerp and Philadelphia, and was awarded various medals and decorations. These awards established Boucheron as one of the greatest jewelers in the world.
Boucheron promoted the Art Nouveau style, creating jewelry made to set off diamonds as well as a variety of items inspired by Japanese art, featuring a combination of gold and ivory, bronze and precious stones in statuettes, vases, candy boxes, lorgnettes, fans, matchboxes and belt-buckles. These sparkled with gold and blued steel, while designs discreetly picked out in pearls and precious stones decorated rock-crystal and enamel. Among his most important achievements were the experiments he performed on diamond engaving, which was the groundwork that led to the “nature” style of the Art Nouveau Movement in the 19th Century. His designs featured snakes, dragonflies, and butterfly images as well as other animal figures of a symbolic nature. He began to simplify settings and implemented a technique that gradually made them invisible. This technique was perfected by his successors using platinum; a metal previously used only for industrial purposes.
Boucheron’s son, Louis Boucheron like his father also believed that the good reputation of a jeweler was made through the beauty of the stones he used. Louis created Art Deco jewelry. One of his famous pieces was the pair of diamond “wing” clips that he made for Countess Greffuhle, a fashion icon of Paris’ society during that time. Louis was also inspired by Cubism, the Ballets Russes and African Art which was very fashionable after the colonial exhibition held in Paris in 1931.
Louis Boucheron also created a new style of contemporary jewelry based on technological discoveries. He cut the stones in new ways (the table cut, the baguette, the prism and the trapezium cut), and used solid blocks of onyx, lapis-lazuli, malachite, turquoise, amber, coral and jade in his designs. In 1925, Louis exhibited his designs at the exhibition of Arts Décoratifs et Industriales Modernes in Paris, France. Collectors and museums such as the renowned Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England and des Arts Décoratifs in Paris purchased his designs.
Louis Boucheron also created a variety of accessories for the “new woman” of the 1920s: bags with sequins or pearls, cigarette holders thirty inches long, compacts encrusted with eggshell, as well as chains, diamond-studded brooches, collars set with precious stones, belts, bold and big bracelets with rubies and emeralds, long earrings which enhanced the new short haircuts of the times and were made famous by Hollywood stars, such as Paola Negri, Gloria Swanson, and Mary Pickford. Louis Boucheron was called “the jeweler of the thousand and one nights,” for the breathtaking jewelry he created for wealthy customers from the East like the Maharajah of Patiala in 1927 and the Shah of Iran in 1931.
After World War II, Boucheron returned to the theme of flowers and fauna, including exotic birds, as well as jewelry created to be worn with the “New Look” fashion launched by Christian Dior in 1947. It featured multi-colored pieces, plumes, bouquets, star-shaped brooches, brooches in the form of a question-mark, and rosettes made of round and baguette-cut diamonds. Other jewelry by Louis Boucheron included coup de vent (gust of wind) rings, cigarette lighters with matching lipstick cases in silver inlaid with niello and set with colored gems as well as gold cigarette cases engraved with a map of France.
The firm Boucheron began to produce watches in every shape. Some of the watches were set in balls and in rings, and the (nail’s head) watches were real jewels themselves. Boucheron has been credited as being the first jeweler to design the wristwatch, as it is known today.
Boucheron later started using the chachuté (high-kicking style) method, in which stones were arranged in shapes resembling knots, cascades or the pistils of a flower. Settings were grouped together in clusters on different levels to create a unique new surface and to produce the impression of delicacy combined with depth. Also gold began to make its reappearance but tinted with unusual new shades such as pink, red, green, white or grey. It was polished and ornamented with chequering, plaited, twisted, faceted, pierced with dots, filed or “purpled,” arranged in lattices and shaped into mesh or lace, vanishing the heavy and imposing styles that were in existence at the time. Filigree work also contributed to give the impression of delicacy and hard, bold, and geometric designs disappeared and were replaced by flower jewelry.
Boucheron’s most popular items during the period after World War II were the perforated and hand-engraved boxes decorated with gold on a silver background and set with sapphires, diamonds and cabochon rubies; pierced into metal were birds, butterflies, flowers with pistils and even elephants.
Today, the firm Boucheron produces “every day jewelry” targeting a much wider clientele and also considerably more affordable like the “multiple” pieces which feature rings, bracelets, necklaces or brooches all mounted in gold or in gold and diamonds combined with different colored stones, which are detachable, enabling the wearer to change the look with every different outfit or occasion. They have re-introduced lapis-lazuli, coral, onyx, tiger’s eye, and other less valuable materials in their designs.
In 1988, the jewelry house of Boucheron launched its own perfume, “Boucheron.” The perfume was such a success that in 2005, new scents were presented. Some of their most well known fragrances include Jaipur, Jaipur Saphir, Boucheron Pour Homme, Trouble, Initial, Trouble Eau Legere and Jaipur Homme Fraicheur.
In 2000, the Gucci Group purchased The House of Boucheron.Today, The House of Boucheron continues to be known internationally as one of the most famous and respected French jewelry houses in the world known for its splendor and prestige.
