Marie-Étienne Nitot — Founder of the House That Became Chaumet
Marie-Étienne Nitot — Founder of the House That Became Chaumet
The Parisian jeweller who supplied Napoleon's coronation regalia and the imperial parures
Marie-Étienne Nitot (1750–1809) was the French jeweller who founded, in 1780, the Place Vendôme business that — through several changes of ownership and three name changes — became the modern maison Chaumet. Nitot's importance to the historical record rests on his appointment as official jeweller to Napoleon I, his execution of the coronation regalia of 1804, and the parures he produced for Empress Joséphine and Empress Marie-Louise. The neoclassical style that defined the work of his atelier set the template for much of the high jewellery produced in Paris in the First Empire and has remained a reference point in Chaumet's own retrospective work into the 21st century.
Origins of the business
Nitot opened his Paris atelier in 1780, working initially within the broader court-jewellery network that supplied Versailles. He survived the Revolution professionally — many of his contemporaries did not — and re-emerged in the late 1790s as one of the small group of Paris jewellers capable of executing high-end commissions. His break came through Napoleon Bonaparte. According to the Chaumet house history, Bonaparte's horse threw a shoe in front of Nitot's premises in the late 1790s, and the ensuing conversation led to a commission that began the relationship.
The coronation regalia (1804)
The single largest commission of Nitot's career was the regalia for Napoleon's coronation as Emperor of the French at Notre-Dame de Paris on 2 December 1804. Nitot executed the coronation sword (l'Épée du Sacre), incorporating the 140-carat Régent diamond — at the time one of the largest known diamonds in Europe — set in the pommel. He also executed elements of the consular crown, the imperial crown Charlemagne (a contemporary creation incorporating cameos in the Charlemagne tradition), Joséphine's diadem, and a substantial parure of pearls and emeralds for the empress.
The Régent diamond is now displayed at the Louvre, having been recovered after various 19th-century vicissitudes; Nitot's coronation sword was dismantled in the 19th century, and the Régent was set into successive imperial crowns under Charles X and Napoleon III before being placed in the Louvre collection.
Imperial parures
Beyond the coronation pieces, Nitot's atelier executed a series of major parures for the imperial family between 1804 and 1814: the famous parure de cassolettes for Joséphine, the emerald parure (eventually given by Joséphine to her daughter-in-law and now in the Smithsonian), the diadem of Marie-Louise, and a number of tiaras and necklaces that have survived in various European royal collections. The work is characterised by neoclassical references — palmettes, laurel wreaths, antique cameos, and intaglio settings — and by precise, low-profile gem-setting that lets the stone do the work.
Succession
Nitot died in 1809. His son François-Regnault Nitot continued the business through the remainder of the Napoleonic era and into the Restoration, but the firm declined sharply after 1814 with the loss of imperial patronage. In 1815 François-Regnault sold the business to Jean-Baptiste Fossin, who passed it in turn to his son Jules; the Fossin firm sold to Jean-Valentin Morel in 1848; Prosper Morel sold to Joseph Chaumet in 1885. The business has operated continuously on Place Vendôme since Nitot's foundation in 1780 — an unbroken trading history of nearly 250 years on the same street.
Style and legacy
Nitot's neoclassical idiom — the use of cameos and intaglios, palmette and laurel ornament, restrained settings that emphasise the gem rather than the metalwork — is one of the recognisable First Empire jewellery styles, and the imperial parures he executed remain reference points in any historical study of European court jewellery. Chaumet's own historical retrospectives (the 2017–2018 Imperial Splendours exhibition at the Forbidden City Beijing and the Place Vendôme heritage gallery) place Nitot at the founding of the house's continuous design lineage.
In the trade
Pieces verifiably from Nitot's tenure are extremely rare in the secondary market. Most of his major commissions are in museum collections (the Louvre, the Smithsonian, the Hermitage, the Schatzkammer in Vienna), and pieces with Nitot attribution that appear at auction trade at substantial premium. For collectors, the relevant references are the Chaumet house archives at 12 Place Vendôme, the Louvre's Galerie d'Apollon (for the Régent and surviving regalia), and the standard literature on First Empire jewellery.