1935 | The adventures of a lacquerer

The Tissot Dupont brothers were looking for a "master plater" ("plaqueur" in French) expert in pure gold plating but a misprint changed the advertisement to "master lacquerer" ("laqueur").
As it turned out, this proved to be a stroke of good fortune, and S.T.Dupont became the owner of secret that is well kept to this day: Chinese lacquer on metal.
The first master lacquerer was an extraordinary character of Russian origin, Novossiltzeff, who had trained in the workshop of Jean Dunand, where the lacquer screens for the transatlantic liner, the Normandie, were made.
He brazed the lacquer for five days straight and worked at night protecting himself from the dust in a tent of damp rags.
Fortunately, his successors managed to transform these empirical methods into authentic and totally unique expertise.