Jewellery

Built for the 1900 Universal Exhibition, the Petit Palais was designed by the architect Charles Girault (1851-1932). He himself designed the wrought iron banisters of the two rotundas, north and south, of the building. Decorated with large foliage scrolls, they constitute particularly virtuoso ironwork. In 1902, Auguste Dutuit, heir to a large family fortune from the textile industry and a great lover of art, bequeathed his collections to the City of Paris: more than 20,000 works of art found their way into the Petit Palais, which became a museum the same year, and the south rotunda took his