Welcome to R. Lalique Car Mascots

The aim of this website it to provide a knowledge base for the car mascots of René Lalique (1860-1945 Wikipedia Link). Otherwise known as hood ornaments, bouchons de radiateur, radiator caps or mascottes, these were mostly designed and created by Lalique in the mid to late 1920s before fading from high fashion in the early 1930s. They remained on sale as mascots until 1937 and we concentrate here primarily on the production period 1925-1931.

René Lalique passed away in May 1945 and the world lost a genius of design and creation as well as manufacturing. When production resumed after the Second World War, the few pieces still in the catalogue (now sold as presse-papiers or paperweights) would have been manufactured in crystal and appear much brighter in appearance and heavier in the hand and with molding detail and definition not at the same level.

I have been discovering and collecting the works of René Lalique for over 20 years. The academic side interested me most and the collection I built up over that time was somewhat eclectic and esoteric as a result and culminated in a single owner sale of over 200 lots at Bonhams, London February 2019.

The car mascots or hood ornaments of Lalique were my first love though and that is where I choose to focus now. Completing a collection of René Lalique Mascots, including all catalogued variants, could in itself be a lifetime task. With that now done, I have dedicated this website as a source of shared knowledge and also for the acquisition and sale of pieces. This site will relate to pre-1945 René Lalique design and manufactured items only. Most of those used as car mascots were designed in the mid to late 1920s which many regard as the golden age of motoring and style in the Art Deco period.

 John Nemeth