Christofle : Une brillante histoire

Exhibition at MAD, Paris, 14 November 2024 - 20 April 2025

Founded in the 1830s by Charles Christofle and continued by Henri Bouilhet, the Christofle goldsmiths have been transforming the lines and decorations of silver for everyday use ever since. In association with the greatest designers such as Luc Lanel, Gio Ponti, Andrée Putman and Karl Lagerfeld, Christofle is an artistic laboratory that is revolutionising traditional goldsmithing by renewing its uses and adorning it with new colours and decorations.

This exhibition catalogue presents a selection of over 600 pieces of silverware, paintings, drawings and posters from the Bouilhet-Christofle Conservatory and major national collections. In doing so, it plunges us into the splendour of great restaurants and palaces such as the Ritz, legendary trains, liners and aircraft such as the Orient-Express, the Normandie and the Concorde, as well as places of political power, all equipped by Christofle, ambassador, in France and abroad, of the art of living and luxury à la française.

Through thirteen thematic essays divided into four chapters, this book traces the extraordinary destiny of the House of Christofle. Sixty-one notes cover the history of the decorative arts as translated into goldsmith's and silversmith's art, from historicism to Japonism, from Art Nouveau to Art Deco, from 1950s design to the most contemporary.