If the name Lacloche is less well known today, it should not be forgotten that the Lacloche house was one of the jewels of the French jewellery industry for seven generations from 1892 to 1967. The history of the Lacloche jewellery house began in Belgium with four brothers. In 1892, Léopold and Jules Lacloche moved to Paris. At the same time, the other two brothers established themselves in Madrid until one of them died. Fernand then joined his two elders in Paris. The prestigious Lacloche Frères shop was then located at 15 rue de la Paix.
On the occasion of the 1925 exhibition of modern decorative and industrial arts in Paris, the Lacloche family enjoyed immense success. The bracelets, brooches, clocks and boxes presented on the stand were dazzling in their elegance and the delicacy of their manufacture. The press raved about their ornaments inspired by the Fables of La Fontaine: a bracelet depicts “The Wolf and the Lamb”, a pendant tells the story of “The Raven and the Fox”; the bird, made of sapphires, perched on its tree, in onyx, holds in its beak a cheese represented by… a yellow diamond. It earned the jeweller a Grand Prix at the Exhibition.
Following this event, the Lacloche house experienced a meteoric rise during the Belle Epoque. Renowned for the elegance and refinement of their manufacture, the models signed Lacloche Frères and then Jacques Lacloche were designed by the best workshops in Paris.
A retrospective devoted to the Lacloche house was held in 2019 at the Ecole des Arts Joailliers in Paris. Through jewellery, clocks, beauty sets – their speciality – and archive documents, this retrospective illustrated, in turn, the naturalism of Art Nouveau, Egyptomania and the craze for the Far East during the Roaring Twenties, the modernism of Art Deco and the fantasy of the 1950s. 74 pieces of jewellery were gathered together: they were found with private collectors based in London, Milan, Geneva, Paris, Los Angelès and Tokyo…
