Jewellery, Goldsmiths and Cutlery and Lacquerware - Expo Paris 1937
In the jewellery classes you noticed the tendency towards lightness of setting, achieved while retaining the beauty of the lines, the invisibility of the metal which ensured the fixity of the stones, the use of stones of various sizes giving complementary luminous effects, and the new process of massaging the coloured stones, instead of separating them by diamonds, thus ensuring them more powerful effects.
In the Goldsmiths and Cutlers class, two kinds of silversmiths exhibited: silver and silver-plated silversmiths, who had observed the interesting technique of retraining and forging to which their customers had been accustomed for centuries.
The objects were designed in a new style: no more cubism, but a return to the curved or at least softened line.
Fine table cutlery and brassware were displayed in numerous stands which, through their lighting effects, gave their pieces their full value.
In the section reserved for lacquerware, you could admire a panel in lacquered bas-relief, the work of Jean Dunand, representing characters dressed in the costumes of our regions and treated in the manner of the large panels executed for the liner "Normandie".
Another panel by the same artist was dedicated to the harvest: it evoked the waves of the wind in the golden wheat.
All the interior decoration and the furniture were made of precious lacquers in bright or soft tones.
In the rooms you could contemplate a thousand objects of lacquer, ivory, tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl, tableware and fine brushwork.
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