Jean-Baptiste Fossin (1786-1848) was a French goldsmith and jeweller working in Paris during the Restoration and the July Monarchy, who acquired the workshop of Marie-Étienne Nitot and his son François-Regnault Nitot in 1815. Through this acquisition and his subsequent operation of the firm under his own name, Fossin established the lineage that runs through Jules Fossin, Jean-Valentin Morel and finally Joseph Chaumet to the modern house of Chaumet at 12 Place Vendôme. He is therefore one of the foundational figures in the institutional history of one of the principal Place Vendôme maisons.

Career

Fossin was apprenticed in the Paris jewellery trade and entered the workshop of Marie-Étienne Nitot, who had been jeweller to Empress Joséphine and to the Emperor Napoleon. After the fall of the Empire in 1815, Fossin acquired the Nitot business, taking over both its workshops and its courtly client base, which had now transferred to the restored Bourbon monarchy. He worked through the reigns of Louis XVIII, Charles X and Louis-Philippe, supplying the Orleans royal family and the wider French and continental aristocracy.

Style

Fossin's work is characteristic of the French Restoration and July Monarchy taste, with romantic naturalistic motifs, fine goldsmith work, and significant production in the Renaissance Revival style that became fashionable from the 1830s onward. Fossin made use of cameo and intaglio settings, fine enamels, and the typically aristocratic stones of the period including diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and pearls. His designs anticipated some of the romantic-naturalist treatments later developed at greater scale by Lucien Falize and the late nineteenth-century jewellers.

Lineage

Jean-Baptiste Fossin was succeeded in the firm by his son Jules Fossin, who maintained the lineage and the royal-patron base. The firm subsequently passed through the partnership of Jean-Valentin Morel, who relocated and rebranded part of the operation, before re-emerging under the leadership of Joseph Chaumet, who married into the family and gave the firm the name it carries today. The house of Chaumet at 12 Place Vendôme thus traces its institutional descent in unbroken sequence from Marie-Étienne Nitot through Fossin and his successors.

Legacy

Surviving Fossin pieces are held at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and in the historical collections of the house of Chaumet itself. They appear at auction infrequently but have an established place in the secondary market for early nineteenth-century French haute joaillerie.