When a jewel becomes a creature.

Published 12 September 2026 · WHV · Public-source editorial note

First the wings, then the woman. René Lalique’s Dragonfly corsage ornament, dated by the Gulbenkian Museum to around 1897–1898, holds a human figure within an insect-like creature. It is beautiful without being entirely comfortable. It is an object that rewards a second look rather than immediate agreement.

The museum records gold, enamel, diamonds, chrysoprase and chalcedony. Articulated wings add movement to the composition. The green female bust gives it a strangely living centre. Shown at the Paris Exposition in 1900, the ornament entered Gulbenkian’s collection through a purchase from Lalique in 1903.

Here is a useful way to widen the idea of jewellery. Materials matter, but so do an artist’s imagination, an unfamiliar subject and the precision of the work. Ask what the piece makes possible that its raw ingredients do not. That question travels well beyond a museum: it can change how we look at a contemporary jewel, a flacon or a small object encountered without a famous name.

Source and context.

Museu Calouste Gulbenkian: Dragonfly corsage ornament, inventory 1197 ↗

A museum-collection reading, not an object offered for sale or a valuation. The documented authorship and acquisition history of this ornament do not authenticate another piece attributed to Lalique.

Source checked 12 September 2026. WHV interpretation is distinct from the source’s account.