Grape Necklace

Description René Lalique revolutionized jewelry design by combining precious and non-precious materials selected according to their aesthetic appeal. By 1904, the year that he exhibited this necklace at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri, Lalique had progressed beyond Art Nouveau, the movement with which he was originally associated. He began emphasizing compositions with symmetrical components in a style that would become fully manifested in the designs he created for molded glass several years later. In this necklace stylized elongated clusters of grapes alternate with leaf and vine formations in gold with green cloisonné enamel. The ten grape clusters are of molded, translucent glass and are attached by prongs to green enameled grounds.

Conservation

Date	Description	Narrative
12/07/1964	Treatment	cleaned
10/04/1984	Treatment	cleaned
11/17/1987	Examination	examined for condition
2/27/2012	Examination	Examined for loan.

Exhibitions

• Jewelry - Ancient to Modern. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1979-1980.
• Art Nouveau Jewelry by Rene Lalique: Masterpieces from the Calouste Culbenkian Museum, Lisbon, and United States Collections. The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles. 1985-1986.
• Inventing the Modern World: Decorative Arts at World's Fairs, 1851-1939. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans; Mint Museum of Art Uptown, Charlotte. 2012-2014.
• From Rye to Raphael: The Walters Story. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. 2014-2016.

Provenance World's Fair, St. Louis, Missouri, 1904 [no. 42]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1904, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.

Credit Acquired by Henry Walters, 1904