Maison Chaumet - Necklace from the “Pierres d’or” Collection designed by Re

Maison Chaumet, jeweler in Paris since 1780 (at 12, Place Vendôme)
Necklace, from the “Pierres d’or” collection designed by René Morin, circa 1980
Fine 18-carat gold, hammered gold cabochon, double gold spiga motif chain with gold attachment links, two gold clasps on the front. 72 brilliant diamonds, 10 baguette-cut diamonds, 8 baguette-cut rubies, 1 oval domed ruby in the center. 750/1000th gold hallmark on the reverse of the central cabochon, two “Chaumet Paris” marks (one on the reverse of the central motif, the other on the reverse of a gold chain attachment (total weight of the necklace: 103 grs.)
René Morin (born in 1932), whose career mainly took place at Chaumet, is considered a true renovator of precious objects in the 20th century. Originally from Nice, he studied sculpture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, while learning the profession of goldsmith-jeweler. In 1956, he obtained a CAP in Jewelry and arrived in Paris in 1957. He became friends with avant-garde painters and sculptors, including Yves Klein and the contemporary art gallery owner Iris Clert, who commissioned clip models from him. René Morin joined Chaumet in 1962: among his first creations of the time for the famous house, a bull's head sculpted from a block of lapis lazuli, dressed with golden horns and a fleece paved with fine stones, as well as a series of brooches and clips made from fragments of lapis, jasper and other decorative stones. He thus easily plays on the oppositions of polished or grooved surfaces, causing relief effects and a whole mobile optical universe, which develops in its "Geometric Jewelry" collection from the 1960s. The Baccarat house asks Chaumet to have it work from raw blocks of crystal: the goldsmith imagines a "Fabulous Bestiary" by associating crystal with jewelry, exhibited with great media success in 1970 at the Parisian Hunting Museum and Nature, then in Rome, and in different cities in the United States. René Morin also innovated by combining bronze with gold and precious stones in certain jewelry and works of art.
Gemologist and member of the Chambre Syndicale des Experts Professionaux des Objects d'Art, René Morin was certainly an expert in precious stones, but that did not prevent him from being more interested in aesthetics than in the value of minerals. Its great audacity from the 80s is a “Golden Stone” collection: large cabochons of fine gold are highlighted by the precious stones that set them. These gold cabochons play the role usually attributed to precious stones, which was hitherto unheard of. The inspiration for these jewels comes from Parisian architecture: it was while looking at the carved cartouches above the doors of 19th century buildings that René Morin had the idea of giving these “Golden Stones” an oval shape. The first gouaches in this collection, of great elegance of design, date from 1980.
This collection constitutes an important step for the Chaumet house, with a very baroque opulence, symptomatic of a cultivated and eclectic conception of luxury in the 1980s. A more accessible “Liens d’or” collection, with these same gold cabochons, but without a gold chain (replaced by cords of silk trimmings, in a choice of different colors) was also distributed. During this same decade, the artist also created - again for Chaumet - a collection called "Nouveaux Regards": it is a staging of art objects reflecting different civilizations, metamorphosed by the intervention of the goldsmith, who justifies it as follows: "The fusion between the art of the past and that of the present gives what has lived the possibility of existing again, of reviving differently...". In 1986-1987, he again produced a series of spectacular objects entitled “Polychrome Architectures”, equally revealing of the crossed influences of this period, but also of the goldsmith's great sculptural sensitivity.
In 1990, René Morin founded his own company, working for big names such as the King of Morocco Hassan II, and for other prestigious jewelry houses on Rue de la Paix. During a journey of prolific imagination, the goldsmith also created numerous academic swords or ceremonial swords - the first in the 1950s for his friend Yves Klein, founder of an ephemeral and fanciful order of chivalry - others much more "official" for Georges Isnard, Javier Perez de Cuellar, Georges Vedel, Jean-Denis Bredin, François Cheng, executed in the Chaumet or Boucheron workshops. Through his taste for innovation and his intimate knowledge of materials, René Morin is considered one of the greatest artists in the renewal of jewelry in the 20th century.
(Main documentary source: article “René Morin, jewels and precious objects” by Marie-Emilie Vaxelaire, in the magazine “L’Estampille / L’objet d’art”, n° 412, April 2006)