Aluminium, Orfèvrerie, Industry, and Allegory in Second Empire France

In 1858, the French metalworking firm Christofle presented an allegorical group of five putti cast in aluminium to Emperor Napoléon III. This surtout de table, or centrepiece, was dedicated to the Emperor in recognition of his personal support of the scientific project that resulted in aluminium, a new discovery of the 1850s. Together with another, slightly different, example for the investor Isaac Pereire, the composition suggests new ways of understanding mid‐nineteenth‐century goldsmithing, the uses of allegory and the imagery of modernity in the applied arts. This dynamic interplay between modern materials and artistic traditions, this essay argues, has much to tell us about the metallic surface and its role in the making of the French Second Empire.