La donation Michel Lacoste au musée du Louvre - Orfèvrerie française de Mangot à Puiforcat

Thanks to the generosity of Michel Lacoste, a set of one hundred pieces of gold- and silversmithing was the subject, in November 2025, of a deferred donation of items already held by the Musée du Louvre. These works, representing a variety of types, reveal the skill and refinement of French silversmithing from the 16th to the 18th century. From 26 June 2026 they will be exhibited together for more than six months in Room 605 of the Department of Decorative Arts, alongside the Louvre’s silverware and ceramics collections usually shown in that room.

These one hundred works represent roughly one quarter of the collection assembled since the 2000s by their owner, Michel Lacoste, whose passion for silversmithing began with the auction catalogue of the Puiforcat collection that his maternal grandmother had given him. The major sale planned for 1955 never took place: most of the lots were purchased by the Greek shipowner Stavros Niarchos, who intended to present them, subject to usufruct, to the Musée du Louvre. Now wishing to share his own passion for this type of work, to pass it on to future generations, and to contribute to the enrichment of the national collections, Michel Lacoste is offering part of his collection to the Musée du Louvre—a logical choice, since the museum already houses the greater part of the Puiforcat collection.

The one hundred selected pieces are distributed as follows: 1 work from the 16th century, 22 works from the 17th century, 76 works from the 18th century, and 1 work from the 20th century. They notably strengthen the holdings of 17th‑century pieces, both Parisian and provincial, and make it possible to include several renowned master silversmiths not yet represented in the museum’s collections, such as Jean‑Baptiste Chéret, Pierre‑François Bonnestrenne and Joseph‑Théodore Vancombert. Others complement the corpus of great masters of French silversmithing—Nicolas Delaunay, Claude II Ballin, François‑Thomas Germain and Jacques‑Nicolas Roëttiers, to name but a few.