Nicknamed the “golden voice” by Victor Hugo, “the divine” or even “sacred monster”, invented for her by Jean Cocteau, Sarah Bernhardt didn’t lack of superlatives to be described.

 

Rightly considered one of the greatest tragedians of the 19th century, she was also a theater director, painter, sculptor and even author of a few plays.

 

Attaching the greatest importance to the costumes she wore, she took care of her stage outfits and knew how to surround herself with the greatest costume designers of her time, Alfred Albert, Theophile Thomas and Jules Muelle.

 

She launched the fashion for theater jewelry which she liked to be showy and voluminous. In December 1894, she met Alphonse Mucha who first designed for her the long Gismonda poster before taking charge of the composition of her stage adornments for 6 years.

 

In 1896, for Lorenzaccio, he imagined a necklace whose patterns were reminiscent of the brocade of the actress's costume which he also created, and for Medee, in whom she played the title role, a snake bracelet which wound from the hand to the elbow. This masterpiece, created by the famous jeweler Georges Fouquet, combines gold, enamel mosaic, opal and ruby.

 

In 1899, Sarah Bernhardt asked Rene Lalique to create the necklace and the sumptuous crown that she wore in La Princesse Lointaine. The tragedian was under the spell of the artist's creations from whom she ordered numerous jewels, both for the stage and for her everyday life; she appreciated their decorative character, the fluidity of their forms, their evocation of the Orient, of fauna and flora, the mixture of precious and ordinary materials as well as their sparkle in the spotlight. The creation of the stage jewelry and the famous coat covered in precious stones for the actress in the 1902 revival of Theodora, in which she again plays the role she created in 1884, constitutes one of the flagships of this artistic complicity.