Alexis Falize’s Noh mask locket, drawn from Hokusai
A gold and cloisonné enamel locket by the French jeweller Alexis Falize captures the Japanese theatrical mask that enchanted nineteenth century Paris, drawn from Hokusai's own studies of the Noh stage.
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When Van Gogh wrote of envying the Japanese, of marvelling at their ability to conjure entire figures with the barest strokes of a brush, he was capturing something that gripped the imagination of Paris in the 1860s and 1870s. Alexis Falize, the brilliant enameller and jeweller, felt the same pull. In a small oval locket of gold, he pays direct homage to that admiration, translating the precise, stylised lineament of a Noh mask into coloured enamel and curling gold, drawn from Hokusai’s Manga, the prolific artist’s notebooks filled with studies of theatrical faces, costume and character.
Alexis Falize, the French jeweller and enameller, held a Noh mask before him—likely one of the sketches from Hokusai’s Manga, the notebooks that had begun to circulate among Paris collectors in the 1860s—and saw in its stylised lineament the perfect subject for a small oval locket in gold and cloisonné enamel. The mask’s face emerges on the interior in counter enamel, a technique of considerable difficulty that demands enamelling on both sides of the metal simultaneously. A creaming pale complexion, eyes outlined in gold, the beard rendered in controlled black strokes: the theatrical expression opens in joy or menace depending on the light. What distinguishes Falize’s hand is the way the gold cells are left partially open in places, their thin edges catching light and creating a linear quality that echoes the brushwork Hokusai employed on paper.
This is not hidden engineering; it is design. The curves and angles of the gold framework follow the contours of the mask’s features, turning the container itself into a drawing. The reverse holds two pheasants rendered in polychrome enamels against a vivid blue ground, their plumage achieved in shades of cream, rust and black, their bodies turned in profile with the economy of line that defined Japanese art of the period.
Between the two sides of the locket, Falize created a complete dialogue with Japanese aesthetics: the theatrical and the natural, the human and the animal, the interior and the exterior mystery of a keepsake. Falize lived from 1811 to 1886 and spent his career perfecting cloisonné enamel at the moment when Paris was being reshaped by Japanese influence. His workshop produced objects for the international exhibitions that defined the era, and collectors across Europe sought his pieces for their combination of sculptural form and painted surface.
Hokusai’s Manga, the vast collection of sketch notebooks the artist produced over decades, circulated among European collectors and artists from the 1860s onward. These studies of masks, figures and natural forms became a visual reference library for craftsmen working in the decorative arts. For Falize, the Noh mask offered a perfect subject: a form already distilled to its essentials, demanding observation of line and character at its most concentrated.
Alexis Falize, who lived from 1811 to 1886, spent his career perfecting cloisonné enamel at a moment when Paris was being transformed by Japanese influence. He trained under Antoine Vechte and became known for the precision of his enamelling and his ability to marry technical mastery with imaginative design. His workshop produced objects for the international exhibitions that defined the era, and collectors across Europe sought his pieces for their combination of sculptural form and painted surface.
Hokusai’s Manga, the vast collection of sketch notebooks the artist produced over decades, circulated among European collectors and artists from the 1860s onward. These studies of masks, figures and natural forms became a visual reference library for craftsmen working in the decorative arts. For Falize, the Noh mask offered a perfect subject: a form already distilled to its essentials, demanding the same economy of line and intensity of observation that Japanese artists prized.
Wartski, the London dealer that holds this locket, was established in 1865 and has built its reputation on objects created during the height of Japonisme, the movement that reshaped European taste in the final decades of the nineteenth century. The gallery specialises in Japanese art and the European objects that answered it, positioning them at the centre of the aesthetic exchange between East and West of which Falize’s locket is part.
Imagery courtesy of Wartski (@wartski1865).
