Its performance in Europe are clearly in declineAs GM inventor of the shark fins ferré a strange fishIn 2001 he will meet with Cecile Brossard all in combining a large number of waysAnd it will last between 24 and 36 monthsThis year surely and for much of next yearBut the situation has changed in two yearsOn paper Washington scrupulously on its promisesWe can just identify it by different means8 of net sales from January to June at EUR 23These actions are the same for three centuries. Bigorne, Chuck, triboulet, Cantle: all tools still used by Jean - François Guyot, Chief of workshop Odiot and craftsman repousseur-Turner. They refer to the time of the golden age of French gold, in the 18th century. In the shop located in Pantin near Paris, the arts, casters, goldsmiths to the hammer, assemblers, polishers, paymaster-spin doctors... apply on pieces of silverware out of tour de Jean-François Guyot. Silver, bronze, or vermeil, they will be of sumptuous table services identical to those designed for aristocratic families, Royal and Imperial courts since 1690. Some models are now diverted, as this spectacular candelabra eight branches transformed into Tealight holder or the Empire style tripod sugar that becomes an incense burner.
Unfazed, the Chief of workshop Jean-François Guyot model forms on a huge tower to push. Harnessed to the machine by a strap, the bust protected a Cuirass as a warrior of the fire, it plans its weight at the rear in a real melee with the tower. For each room, a different spindle set at the machine will give the desired shape: sugar, soup tureen, flat round or oval. Jean-François Guyot began by capturing a sheet of money first pure title to nine hundred fifty thousandths. Purity guaranteed by the punch to la Minerve, since 1838, is substituted for others. He added fifty millèmes of copper to major leaf and prevent twist under pressure. Thus "reinforced", leaf is mounted on the spindle, the tour starts and craftsman guide with a long chisel, its "flat spoon."
No school for these know-how
Once formatted, the sheet will be expelled from the tour. Very ductile, silver obeys the will of the craftsman who must nonetheless demonstrate the greatest attention to detail. "I'm working on a wire". "The slightest deviation or support too pronounced, exhibit breaks or to fend", States Chief of workshop entered in Odiot in 1989 after its weapons among other great Parisian silversmith Puiforcat. "Today, there is more school that perpetuate this know-how." "While some come form in our workshops", he said. Small size, for example spoons, or decorative elements, parts are manufactured by the lost wax casting.
Parts of shapes out of the Tower, the arts are added reasons and furrows, directly embedded in the metal with fine ciselets and scalpels. The difference of the engraving, the carving withdraws money, but the hollow. Still a work of extreme accuracy, with a golden rule: never type twice in the same place.
Jean-François Guyot intervenes again at the end of the manufacture at the time where the parts are assembled by "stitching" worked, they will also in turn, become invisible. If the customer wants a vermilion finish, pieces of silverware will be thrust into a bath of fine gold. All will be polished and lustrées with plant materials, to shine a thousand fires. Great cooks say that money gives dishes an incomparable flavour.
Hanging on the walls of the workshop, the portraits of the Odiot family whose generations successor for three centuries. Founder, Jean-Baptiste Gaspard Odiot, painted surrounded by his creations, the last of the dynasty, Gustave who become blind, committed suicide in 1906. After be passed into the hands of a myriad of owners (Boulanger, Cartier, Sagem, Daum), home owned for four years the Morinière Nicolas and his partner, Guy Bizot, who took the orders of the House. On the shelves, boxes to drawings contain the drawings and sketches of time still used: princely tables services to lavish scenery, Baroque lamps, vases "néo-rocaille" to the animal or vegetable insets. Jean-François Guyot draws ideas from this impressive "library" established over the centuries.
Under Louis XV, Odiot was already recognized as one of the best silversmiths of his time. But the House gained his international reputation under the Empire. The capital account then three hundred goldsmiths. But in workshops Odiot that will be shaped the sceptre and the sword of Napoleon I to 1804 coronation. The same for the cradle of the King of Rome in 1811, which will require no less than two hundred eighty kilograms of silver. The workshop staggers under the command of the military officers whose uniforms - fringes, buttons, spurs - as well as ceremonial weapons have to be gold. Fashion wins the United States and the reputation of maison Odiot is such that the American President Thomas Jefferson commissioned him a timpani in vermeil. Its model is still in the catalogue.
