Maison Maquet

Maquet is a French manufacturer of luxury stationery, leather goods, and art prints, established in Paris, in 1841 by the Maquet brothers, Hector and Charles (brothers of Auguste Maquet). One of the most renowned Parisian luxury houses, Maison Maquet became official purveyor to Empress Eugénie as well as to several royal courts, winning multiple awards and medals at various World's fairs over the course of its history.

The Maquet brothers, Hector and Charles, established Maison Maquet in 1841. The eldest Maquet sibling was Auguste Maquet, the novelist, playwright and famous ghost-writer of Alexandre Dumas, for whom he co-wrote several masterpieces such as The Three Musketeers, Queen Margot and The Count of Monte-Cristo.

The Maquet company was created to commercialize the patent for the first machine-made envelopes, the use of which was still little known. This patent, the application for which was filed in 1841 and granted by the French Patent Office on 17 January 1842, described how to manufacture and use the "envelope-card-letter" (enveloppe-carte-lettre, in French), also called "a word in the Mail" (un mot à la Poste). The invention of the envelope was the culminating point of a variety of measures taken since the 17th century to preserve correspondence confidentiality.

In 1846, Hector and Charles Maquet separated their activities: Charles managed the envelopes factory, while Hector ran the boutique shop on Rue de la Paix. In 1864, Hector Maquet registered as a trademark an elegant monogram mixing his initials.

The house was first located at No. 20 (renumbered to No. 24) Rue de la Paix in Paris from 1841 to 1867 and then at No. 10 from 1868, where it remained for about a century. In the early 1970s, the house moved to 45 Rue Pierre Charron, where it kept a boutique shop until 1993. Though it did not have any commercial branch in the 19th century, Maquet eventually opened one in Nice at 16 Masséna Avenue (now Avenue de Verdun) in the early 20th century.

Maison Maquet soon became one of the most fashionable personal stationery houses and enjoyed great fame during the French Second Empire. It even obtained the warrant of "official purveyor to Her Majesty the Empress". Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III regularly visited the shop on Rue de la Paix, where she was served by Madame Maquet.

Maquet was also favored by French aristocratic elites, and its clients included the Princess Pauline von Metternich, as well as the Rohan-Chabot and Costa de Beauregard families.

Maison Maquet's products were particularly trendy among foreign royal courts. Maquet notably supplied the Russian court, including the Great Duchess and the Great Duke Konstantin of Russia. In fact, the French daily newspaper Le Figaro reported in 1875 that the "stationary was adorned with the Great Duke's coat of arms, embellished with gold and colors enamel; of unparalleled richness and elegance." The Prince Axel of Denmark was also a faithful client of Maquet.