About Auguste Legras

In 1864 Auguste Legras took over the St. Denis glassworks and founded Legras. He was already an experienced glassmaker, and began producing a massive amount of glass in many commercial types and styles. The company was soon very successful. It was profitable enough for the family to take over the established Pantin glassworks in 1897. Somewhere around 1900, possibly at the great Paris Exhibition, Legras discovered Emile Galle, and Legras decided to seriously concentrate on producing art nouveau style glass, both Cameos like Galle and a wide range of other techniques. In 1909 Auguste retired and the company was taken over by his son Charles, who quickly started to focus on the early scent bottles being designed by Rene Lalique for Coty, getting a contract to produce some early ones before Rene Lalique was fully geared up to produce them. Like most French Glass makers, the Legras works closed between 1914 and 1919. After 1919 they quickly identified the need to move to Art Deco style production. Legras produced quite a range of different and original art glass. However a significant part of their production followed the styles of Galle, Daum, Moser, Rene Lalique, Schneider, etc. Sometime in the late 1920s, Legras' production of art glass effectively ceased.