Jewels of light

Regis Mathieu, director and designer of Mathieu Lustrerie, the bespoke chandelier company behind the iconic restoration of the Hall of Mirrors in The Palace of Versailles, was in India last month. In town for the restoration of chandeliers at the Baroda Palace, we caught up with him at The Imperial in Delhi for a conversation that mulled over his family business and the art of making chandeliers.

You have been associated with chandeliers since childhood.

Mathieu, my family name, is also the name of my company. ‘Lustrerie’ in French, means the manufacturing of chandeliers. I joined the family business, a long time ago now, when I was 19. My father founded the company in 1948, when chandeliers were popular not for art, but more for decoration. When I started working in 1998, I trusted my ambition to transform chandeliers into pieces of art. Now, we have an art gallery in Paris where we display antique pieces of chandeliersas well as classic chandeliers. We work more like a jeweller, rather than a designer. Everything is done by hand in our workshop. We have never had a shop, or a distributor, and we rely on word-of-mouth. All our projects are tailor-made for the customer. On an average, it takes three to six months to complete on one single piece.

How often do you come up with new interpretations of the chandelier?

We restore classic pieces that are dying, and also re-manufacture antique chandeliers, but we don’t duplicate or copy. We make the exact piece, as the artist would have imagined it in the 17th or 18th century. I don’t feel like a very modern designer. I feel like the story of the chandelier continues through me. I design some very modern chandeliers, but use classical aesthetics such as the Baroque style and materials such as stones, silver, gold and bronze. I design something that would be special to the person who owns it.

How have chandeliers evolved in Europe? How has its history influenced your aesthetic?

Originally, chandeliers were not made of glass but stone. Glass was used to imitate stone, in the same way that crystals are but a copy for diamonds. I design every day, but if you feel that only what is contemporary can be called original, then I design one collection a year. I want whatever I design to become a classic, that remains special even after a few years. I adapt my designs to the taste of my customer. When a classical chandelier was made in the 17-18th century, it was modern for that time. It needs to be suited to contemporary needs. Some chandeliers, such as the five-metre tall piece in Opéra de Monte-Carlo in Monaco, took over one year and about five tonnes of bronze to manufacture.

Are you always restoring palaces and collectors items?

We often give new life to historic chandeliers. One of them, for instance, was a gift from King Louis XV to his favourite mistress the Marquise de Pompadour, a unique chandelier that was designed by one of the most famous designers of the time. There was only one copy of it which was damaged, and the French government asked us to make a version of the original. But we have also made chandeliers exclusively for brands, such as Carlton. The Carlton in Hong Kong, London, and Champs Élyseés in Paris each have one of our pieces. It is called the Carlton chandelier and we cannot sell it to any other commercial establishment but them.

What unorthodox experiments have you tried in your design?

Some of my collections are inspired by natural forms. The sea-urchin or the jellyfish pieces, both inspired from nature, diffuse light through the semi-precious stones used in them. The jellyfish is made of bronze, and other semi-precious materials, with lots of intricate detailing.

Tell us about one of your more memorable restoration projects?

We did the restoration of 28 chandeliers in the Palace of Versailles in 2004. The hall where the chandeliers are kept is full of mirrors, and so, every chandelier feels doubled. It was a crazy experience working at the Palace. There is always some work to be done at the Palace of Versailles, but the Hall of Mirrors was especially fascinating to do. At some point, we even set up a workshop in Versailles because there was just so much to do.

Why are the chandeliers by Mathieu Lustrerie art, according to you?

We consider what we do is art, just how it would be if you were to buy a painting from an artist. First of all, it has to be unique. With any customer, we first visit the space, we ask them about their styles, what they like, to understand their taste.

The quality of the light in a chandelier changes everything. The light has to be at the service of the designer. We use a bulb, an LED, which has the exact luminescence of a candle. Lots of times people get confused between lights and chandeliers. Everything I make is for somebody, so there is a strong connection. You buy a lamp and you forget about it, if you want something technical that is merely a source of light, but this is special, not an ordinary object, in that sense. You have a relationship with it because it is a piece of art.

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