A rare S.T. Dupont Ligne 1 from the Révolution Française limited edition of 1989, decorated in Chinese lacquer mosaic in red and blue over gold, complete with its original box and international guarantee card.
S.T. Dupont produced its first luxury lighter in 1941 and has marked national occasions with limited editions ever since. For the bicentenary of the Revolution the maison issued a single collection that interpreted the event two ways — one historical, one contemporary — drawing together gold, silver, laque de Chine, silk and porcelain. Dupont assigned each colour of the tricolour a meaning: blue for emotion, red for passion, and white for elegance.
The full edition ran to eleven pieces: three pocket lighters, a cigar cutter, an ashtray, a fountain pen, a convertible pen, a note clip, two key holders and a silk scarf. This lighter is one of the three pocket lighters, and belongs to the contemporary reading of the theme — the tricolour broken into an irregular mosaic of red and blue lacquer facets, divided by fine gold lines and set against polished gold, in a deliberately fractured, almost stained-glass treatment that catches the light differently from every angle.
The technique behind it is laque de Chine, the Chinese lacquer work S.T. Dupont is most admired for: many thin layers built up and polished by hand over weeks, each applied only after the last has fully cured. On a mosaic design the difficulty multiplies, because every facet has to be laid and levelled against its neighbours without the boundaries blurring.
It is offered with its original red box and the S.T. Dupont Carte Internationale guarantee card. A genuinely uncommon limited edition Ligne 1 with full presentation, serviced and in perfect working order.