(Please note that the red flame colour in the photo looks "smear". This is because of the compression of the high resolution photograph. In the process, the red colour looks "smeared" and "distorted". This is usually the case for red colour. Let me assure you that the red colour is perfect, no distortion and it is evenly lacquered throughout the barrel and cap ). In other words, it is PERFECT.  

Art Deco 

On April 28, 1925 in the heart of Paris, along the banks of the Seine, all the way to Place de la Concorde, the international exhibition organised by France opened It was to give birth to a style to be known ever after as An Deco.  

The history of the decorative and during the first half of the twentieth century is one of profound revolutions and striking contrasts of spirit and taste. It includes works as diverse as Bauhaus tubular steel furniture and the Mouvement Moderne - whose ideal continues to inspire contemporary design - and the elaborate and individual creations of the foremost Art Deco designers.

The taste for new ideas was in their veins (most of these designers were not even 25 years old) and this contributed to the establishment of the" decorative arts. During the four years of feverish activity only brought to a halt by the outbreak of war in 1914, Paris was the most brilliant of Europe’s many cultural centres. Artists and Designers seized every opportunity to display their myriad talents.

Even before war broke out, a small group of painters had already experimented with cubism but we had to wait for the dawn of the 1920s and in particular the Exposition Coloniale of 1922 for the style to acquire a certain chic, no doubt helped by the emergence of jazz, Black art, Aztec architecture and also Egyptian art (Tutankhamen's tomb had been discovered in1921).

Considered as the cutting edge or design these de luxe creations inspired the shapes for mass production Items in particular for furniture, glassware ceramics, jewellery and ornaments. The Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et lndustriels to give it its full title was the occasion for the great names in French art to express themselves:  

Jean-Emile Rhulmann, Francis Jourdain, Pierre Chareau, Edgar Brandt and Jean Dunand (1877-1942} a graduate of the Ecole des Arts lndustriels or Geneva , moved towards decorative arts and sheet metal craft. In 1912, he met the Japanese Sugawara who was to teach him everything about real natural lacquer. He became a lacquerer and pursued his new found passion. His dominant tints are reds, deep blacks and off whites; animal, floral and exotic themes are the inspiration for his prestige lacquerwork.

Dunand made works of art: his vases and other objects are finely wrought objects before being lacquered You have to have seen a lacquered metal vase by Dunand to be aware of the precision of design and finish the happy contrast of colours, symbolising the search for geometric abstraction of the Art Deco period. The art of French lacquer really took off in the field or decoration. Thus this new artistic current gave birth to the first lighter bearing the S.T. Dupont name, the symbol of true Parisian chic since 1925.