Jean Boggio,

Born in 1963, Jean Boggio took up jewellery at fifteen. At twenty-one, he opened his own workshop in Lyon, becoming France’s youngest independent jeweller.

In 1988, his Bagues Palais were presented at the Grand Palais in the exhibition De main de Maître (By a Master’s Hand). These jewels take the form of miniature architecture: towers, ramparts and stones come together as small cities worn on the finger, with the stones seeming to inhabit them like characters on a stage. The exhibition revealed a visual language that would remain central to his work: the jungle, the circus, the carousel, the schoolyard. The imagination of childhood finds expression within the exacting discipline of goldsmithing.

Boggio went on to create editions with Daum, Baccarat, Chopard, Haviland, Émaux de Longwy, Tassinari & Chatel, the Ritz Paris and the Réunion des Musées Nationaux. His workshop remains in the vineyards of Beaujolais, where he continues to design and produce his work.

In 2006, he designed the Mascarade lamps for the maison Charles, alongside Philippe Parent, then the maison’s artistic director. These pieces bring his taste for storytelling and theatre into the repertoire of art bronzework.