French jewelry designer Line Vautrin
Gilded Bronze box, detail. Top carved with faces, and a single smiling face among them. French jewelry designer Line Vautrin (1913-1997)
French jewelry designer Line Vautrin (1913-1997)
Born in 1913, renowned French designer Line Vautrin has found her own path in jewelry design. She created jewelry and decorative objects of rare beauty, truly wearable art.
A future designer, inventor, entrepreneur and educator, Vautrin became interested in metalworking technology at a young age. So, she mastered casting, gilding and bronze chasing at her family’s foundry. Continuing to become acquainted with ancient cultures, hieroglyphs, pictograms, as well as ancient metalworking methods, she traveled widely.
She turned the acquired knowledge, skills and artistic vision into the design of allegorical and exquisite jewelry. In addition, the designer’s calling card was the use of symbolic images and poetry on gilded bronze. Noteworthy, in 1948 Vogue called her “the poetess of metal.”
It is important to note that, together with her daughter Marie-Laure, Lin Vautrin founded the Association for the Development of the Handicrafts, where she taught metalworking and jewelry making.
Vautrin died in 1996, leaving a rich legacy of unique works filled with poetry, tales and mythology.
Gilded bronze box with cork-lined interior, circa 1948
Maker’s mark
French jewelry designer Line Vautrin
Abstract design bronze clip
‘Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden’ bronze pendant. Late 1930s
Bracelet with the daughters of Poseidon – Scylla, Glaucus, the Nereids, Tethys, Poseidon, and the Gorgons. Gilded bronze, circa 1945
Bunch of Flowers oval brooch. 5 cm
Grapes gilded bronze belt buckle, circa 1940s
‘C’est idiot’ pill box in gilded bronze, circa 1948
‘Chateau en Espagne’ (Spanish castle) guilt bronze brooch
Compact box. Bronze, enamel. 1940s
Dangle brooch with figures symbolizing Heaven, Earth and Hell. 1950s
Enameled ceramic buttons
Flower brooch pendant. Bronze, enamel
Gold brooch. 3.8 cm
L’anémone et L’ancolie (an excerpt from the poem ‘Clotilde’ by Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) Box. Gilded bronze, circa 1950
‘Mignonne Allons Voir Si La Rose’ silver plated bronze brooch with relief sculpted inscription
Round button design white enamel ceramic and gold pin
‘Saint Nicolas’ gilt bronze pendant choker necklace, circa 1945-1950
‘Work Dominating the World’ articulated brooch. Gilt bronze
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