An Art Deco gold and rock crystal manual wind pendant watch featuring a silver dial with applied, gold dart and baton indexes, an applied, gold minute track, and signed "René Boivin" below 12 o'clock, with a rose crystal case back, in 18k. René Boivin. With French guarantee stamps. Movement signed UTI Watch Co.

René Boivin founded his storied jewelry house during the 1890s in Paris. Drawn to botany and the naturalism of the Art Nouveau period, Boivin absorbed the era’s organic language without surrendering to it, creating jewels that remained strikingly his own. Upon his death in 1917 his wife Jeanne, the sister of the famous couturier Paul Poiret, took over the running of the company. This was an unusual path for a woman at the time, and she was the first woman to head a major jewelry house in Paris.

Jeanne worked closely with her daughter Germaine and the jewelry designer Juliette Moutard. Their geometric and streamlined Art Deco jewels and Mid-Century creations inspired by botanicals and animals became well known in France and beyond. Jeanne is also credited with discovering the legendary jewelry designer Suzanne Belperron who, after designing for Boivin from 1919 to 1932, founded her own company.

Today, both the houses of Boivin and Belperron are widely regarded as two of the most important jewelers of the 20th century. Boivin jewels continue to be distinguished by their sculptural scale, daring use of colored gemstones, and unconventional material pairings.