The Chrysler presents a comprehensive look at one of the most influential designers of the 20th century, René Lalique, who combined artistry and industrialization to bring luxury to the masses. Trained as a jewelry designer in the Art Nouveau style, he freelanced for Cartier and Boucheron before opening his own shop in 1885. By 1890, jewelry from his Parisian studio was the favorite of celebrities and social elites. His experiments with glass in jewelry steadily grew into a pursuit of its own, and within a few years his beautifully crafted perfume bottles were quite the rage. By 1909, he was mass-producing them in a factory. This exhibition focuses on Lalique’s work with glass and covers decades of creativity. As tastes moved from Art Nouveau to Art Deco, he had the luxury of being hailed as a leader and innovator in both. By the time of his 1945 death, Lalique had left an indelible mark on glass art—producing jewelry, medallions, bottles, tableware, smoking accessories, lamps, clocks, even automobile mascots, more commonly known as radiator caps or hood ornaments today. This exhibition includes historic images from a storied period of French history. It includes one of his patent applications, and it provides even further insight into his methods by way of production molds and design drawings. René Lalique: Enchanted by Glass will be on view Sept. 14, 2017, through Jan. 21, 2018, and admission is free. The exhibition debuted at the Corning Museum of Glass on May 17, 2014. It was curated by Kelley Elliott, the assistant curator for modern and contemporary glass at the upstate New York institution. As the Chrysler will present this exhibition in a larger space than the original show, we’ll feature additional selected Lalique works from both gracious private collectors and the Chrysler’s permanent collection. A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the show and is available in The Museum Shop.

At the end of the first century B.C., glassmakers working in the environs of Jerusalem made a revolutionary breakthrough in the way glass was made. They discovered that glass could be inflated at the end of a hollow tube. This technical achievement—glassblowing—made the production of glass vessels much quicker and easier, and allowed glassmakers to develop new shapes and decorative techniques. One technique, inflating glass in molds carved with decorative and figural designs, was used to create multiple examples of a variety of vessel shapes with high-relief patterns. The molds used to shape this ancient glass were complex in their design, and the mold-blown glass vessels of ancient Rome tell a wealth of stories about the ancient world, from gladiators to perfume vessels, from portraits of a Roman empress to oil containers marked with the image of Mercury, Roman god of trade. Among the earliest workshops to design and create mold-blown glass was one in which a man named Ennion worked. Ennion was the first glassmaker to sign his glass objects by incorporating his name into the inscriptions that formed part of the mold’s design, and thus he stands among a small group of glass workers whose names have come down to us from antiquity. On view through January, 4, 2016, Ennion and His Legacy, is composed of mold-blown master works by Ennion and other Roman glassmakers. The works are drawn from the Corning Museum’s collection of Roman glass, one of the finest in the world. Within the larger exhibit is a smaller exhibit organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ennion: Master of Roman Glass, which focuses specifically on works made by Ennion. Composed of loans from a number of international institutions and private collections this exhibit within an exhibit brings together many of the known examples of Ennion’s wares and will be on view through October 19, 2015.