The mysterious story behind the René Lalique two identical hunter pocket watches "Scarabée Rhinocéros et Fleurs de Trompettes"

It all started with nine words...a short and concise sentence sharing excellent news. Sent on the 17th of August of 1895 by a young artist and jeweler called René Lalique to his future wife Alice Landru, they were included in a larger letter : "ce matin, j'ai fait près de 4000 chez Patek"

This morning, I made 4000 at Patek... A real fortune baring in mind that the average yearly salary in Paris of a housekeeper was 500 francs or that it would cost you 30 francs to travel from Paris to London. And yes, the client is Patek Philippe & Co Genève, today's iconic and "uber"-swiss watchmaker. The Patek Museum considered by most as a sanctuary to excellence and métiers d'art watchmaking still exhibits the famous "Scarabée Rhinocéros et Fleurs des trompettes" designed and produced by René Lalique in 1895. But is it really the same hunter pocket watch? The prolific René Lalique might well have produced other pieces to Patek.

Traces of this watch remounts to the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris, where René Lalique exhibits its most emblematic works, fruits of a decade of unparalleled creativity. The historian of Art Raymond Bouyer will describe most hunter pocket watches exhibited in a article published in 1901 in the monthly Art et Décoration (Tome IX, pp 37-40), namely this precise model illustrated in page 39. It is fair to believe that Lalique would have asked to Patek the permission to exhibit the watch as a demonstration of his savoir-faire.

Yet, the story gets much more interesting at this point.

Searching for any pocket watch signed Lalique sold in auctions recently, we found that Sothebys' presented in Geneva on the 16th of June of 2020 the "Scarabée Rhinocéros et Fleurs des trompettes". Sold for 106.250 Swiss francs, the pictures and description leaves no doubt: it is another watch with another mechanical mouvement, yet baring the same Lalique handmade decorated gold case. The Patek Museum confirms that their hunter pocket watch has also a "little brother" in the hand of a private collector!

So what happened at that time? Did René Lalique accept to produce an identical watch case during the 1900 Exposition Universelle in order to satisfy a new order? Or did he produce two watches in 1895, sold one to Patek and keep the other one for the exhibition? How come that at time Patek Philippe & Co Genève "allow" this to happen?

Well, those questions will probably remain unanswered unless the private collector who acquired this "nearly" unique piece two years ago decides to share new information.

To be continued...

This short resumé is part of our research on the extraordinary artist, jeweler and glass industrial René Lalique (1860-1945), and more precisely on his very limited hunter pocket watches production (probably less that 10 pieces) . The final text will be shared soon. The letter, at the origin of this text, is extracted from the book "René Lalique, correspondance d'un bijoutier art nouveau 1890-1908", edited in Lausanne in 2007 by the then director of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, Philippe Thébaut. Gathering hundreds of letter from and to René Lalique, it sheds light on the daily life and travels of a major Art Nouveau and art déco artist.