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or the past 254 years, the crystal glassware makers Baccarat have embodied worldwide French elegance
and savoir-faire. When heritage and tradition place arts and crafts- manship at the summit of luxury. In August 1744, right amidst the War of the Austrian Succession, Louis XV arrived unannounced in Metz. He soon fell gravely ill and death appeared imminent, before miraculously recove- ring and earning himself the moniker "well-beloved". Twenty years later, when the bishop of Metz requested permission from the monarch to set up a glassworks, Louis XV inevitably approved. Soon after, artistic glassware production developed in Baccarat, in the Moselle department. In France, history and savoir-faire are intimately linked, and the world’s most illustrious manufacturer of crystal glassware has known how to endure the test of time
to become a symbol of French excel- lence and way of life, uniting trends to instigate tomorrow’s classics.
Renowned for the finest crystal in the world, Baccarat’s glassware combines beauty, luxury and quality. This trio is the backbone of its DNA. The savoir-faire has been passed on, from generation to generation for 254 years in the ateliers in the Lorraine region, where craftsmen would lend their talent to the service of perfec- tion, transforming raw material into an object of desire. The number 15 simply sums up Baccarat’s excellence. This represents the number of years required to master the technique and exploit crystal’s infinite sculptural pos- sibilities. The result is clear, Bacarrat amounts today the largest number of meilleurs ouvriers de France.
"Just like the Harcourt glass which was created in 1841, Baccarat’s crea- tions convey a history whose strength
lies in its ability to return the magic of a light reflecting to infinity", explains the crystal glassworks, who, as well as their highly popular museum in the Lorraine region, display their rich heritage and their fortune’s splendour at the Maison Baccarat in Paris and Moscow. Since 2015, they even have a hotel in New York, the Baccarat Hotel & Residences.
A staple on the tables at formal din- ners at the Elysée since 1899, Baccarat has always managed to impose and preserve its identity, "incarnating the most precious talisman of the art of living". Their creations have seduced some of the greatest names, from the Indian maharajahs to the Japanese Imperial Court via Nicholas II of Rus- sia, Franklin Roosevelt, Josephine Baker and even Aristotle Onassis. The glassware embodies a timeless phantasmatic elegance fuelled by the heritage’s powerful identity.