Barn Owl Sculpture, Amber Crystal

Lalique captures in crystal the crucial pre-attack moment. With its talons stretched out, the barn owl rips through the air. In flight, this raptor is so silent that its prey is easily caught. Trained as a jeweler at the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs in Paris in the late 1880's, Rene Lalique gained recognition as an independent designer for some of the era's great jewelry houses including Cartier and Boucheron. Eventually, he turned to glassmaking, and his techniques were a triumph for the Art Deco movement. Every piece of Lalique is finely detailed and produced by hand in Alsace, France.