Gonzague Mézin on making his ‘rare objects’

Créateur d’Objets Rares Gonzague Mézin - who recently relaunched the 18th-century luxury brand Lignereux - this week talked to Athena at a live event in London’s Broadwick Hotel about his recent exhibition at the Chateau de Versailles. In this short video, Gonzague describes the making of the sumptuous objects he created for the exhibition in response to those commissioned from Lignereux by Louis XV and Marie Antoinette. He focuses on one object from the Kubla Khan series of four sculptures representing each of the four elements. These pieces are mounted in gilt bronze using many of the same techniques as those employed in the eighteenth century. Mighty Fountain represents water and was made by about thirty artisans in six or seven workshops, all chosen for their vituosity as makers. Here we see one of the artisans at the Atélier Saint Jaques and Coubertin Foundry near Versailles. Whereas in the eighteenth century, the founders would work with ‘master models’ carved in wood or made in clay, today they use shapes designed by Mézin and produced in resin with 3-D printers. These models are then used to produce molds into which the molten bronze is poured using the traditional lost-wax technique.