After designing furniture for Charles Gillot, Eugène Grasset ventured into another field of decorative art with the jewellers and goldsmiths Vever. The collection of some twenty pieces of jewellery he produced for this firm were shown at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900.
The Vever company was founded in Metz in 1821 by the brothers Paul and Henri Vever. It was probably Charles Gillot who introduced Eugène Grasset to Henri Vever, with whom he shared the same passion for Japanese prints.
Eugène Grasset, Maison Vever, Paris, 1900
ivory, gold and enamel
Eugène Grasset, Maison Vever, Paris, 1900
gold, silver, enamel, ruby, turquoise, emerald, red jasper, diamond
Vever was not the only jewellery house to commission an artist to create such pieces, which were soon dubbed “painter’s jewellery” due to the colour harmonies of their enamels and tints of gold.
Eugène Grasset’s ornamental vocabulary of legendary female figures, animals and flowers was considered by contemporaries to be Byzantine, Irish and Japanese influenced.
Eugène Grasset, Maison Vever, Paris, 1900
gold, enamel, amethyst, turquoise
Eugène Grasset, Maison Vever, Paris, 1900,
gold, enamel and cornelian
The Musée des Arts Décoratifs has seven of the pieces Eugène Grasset designed for Vever, six of which were donated to the museum by Henri Vever in 1924.