Rene Lalique Narkiss-4 Perfume Bottle: RLalique.com

Rene Lalique Narkiss-4 Perfume Bottle information and photos at RLalique.com are tied together on this main Narkiss-4 Perfume Bottles page. Past and future auctions, historical details, sales, copies, reproductions, articles and more are all accessible from here. This page grows as more info is added to the website.

Note: Narkiss is the name of a story written by the French author Jean Lorrain in the late 1800's. It was dedicated to "...my friend Lalique". The story is about the Greek mythological figure Narcissus (the guy that fell in love with his own image). Narkiss is Lorrain's name for the Egyptian prince who is the central figure in her version of the myth. The story was first published just before before 1900 and was reprinted in 1902. In 1908 finely bound illustrated reprints were issued. It was a popular story in its day and is said to have inspired the Russian Ballet Narcisse that first premiered at Casino Monte-Carlo in April of 1911 with none other than the dancing legend Vaslav Nijinsky in the title role. You can view examples of the book including photos of various pages at the Narkiss Book model page.

Also Note: There are 4 variants of the Narkiss Perfume Bottle. This is a large approximately 22 cm tall display version that closely matches the 10 cm size Narkiss including having the 2 butterflies stopper. Because of the size and because we don't know it's an exact match, we gave it a different model number. This bottle has appeared unsigned and also with a molded signature as shown in the May 2021 listing below. And in any event, because it is roughly twice the size of the next two closest size bottles, it's unlikely to be confused with any of the others. We don't know when this bottle was created. One of the 2 examples of this bottle that appeared in the Marie Claude Lalique collection had a label with a 1913 date on it, so we went with that. In addition to this bottle and the 10 cm Narkiss bottle, there is also Narkiss-2. It's a 4 cm sample bottle and the smallest of the four. It's also the only variant where the petals remain separate all the way out to the edge of the design. The fourth version is Narkiss-3. It's 12 cm high and the 2nd largest of the four variants. It has a flower with wider and bigger spaces between the petals (both absolutely and proportionally) than the other three versions, and a stopper with 4 butterflies.

Also Note: Compare the shape and design on this bottle to the Soleil Vase from the same year Narkiss was first introduced.