Jean Artaud

All perfumes & Information

The Jean Artaud company was founded in Grasse in the south of France in 1703. Its founding dates back to the era of absolutism and courtly society: the curly splendor of the then fashionable allonge wigs reached magnificent proportions, and ringlets framed the white-powdered faces of fine ladies. In the 18th century, Grasse underwent a transformation from the peak of the tanning industry in the 17th century and the beginning of the perfume glove-making craft to the center of the perfume and fragrance industry. Jean Artaud was considered one of the early pioneers in this important branch of the French economy. Even Johann Maria Farina laid the foundations for the oldest Eau de Cologne factory in Germany not earlier than 1709.

The company history of Jean Artaud can hardly be reconstructed. It remains unclear who the founder of Jean Artaud was. The company may have been renamed after its founding or remained in family ownership through inheritance until the 19th century.

It is not sure whether the following finds can shed some light on the ownership for the period from 1793 to 1845: During the French Revolution, in 1793, an arrest warrant was issued in Paris against a Jean Artaud, a perfumer from Rue Saint-Denise, and other citizens, including the perfumer Bolard the Younger from Rue Saint-Honoré, by order of the Committee of Public Security, and the "affixing of seals to papers" was ordered. Nothing is known about the reasons, the relationship to Grasse, or the outcome of the proceedings. Grasse itself was at that time a city with a rather opportunistic and commercial tradition, generally opposed to the revolution. The majority of the merchant bourgeoisie participated in a counter-revolutionary movement. In 1813/14, a perfume merchant named Jean Artaud acquired a property in the municipality of Sartoux containing vineyards, olive trees, fields, and undeveloped land. A Jean Artaud also owned the Chapelle Saint Thomas de Villeneuve in Grasse, which, following the national sale of church property, had previously belonged to Léopold Levens, who sheltered recalcitrant priests there. During the Revolution, the chapel served as a repository for the municipality's religious objects. In 1845, the heirs of this Jean Artaud bequeathed the chapel to the Welfare Office in accordance with the terms of his legacy.

At an unknown point in the 19th century, the perfumer Louis Antoine Cresp became the owner of Jean Artaud. In the documentation for the renaming of his company Cresp-Girard l'Ainé to Cresp-Girard Fils, he stated that he also owned the Jean Artaud brand.

In 1883, Louis Antoine Cresp still continued to manage the Jean Artaud house and his perfumery Cresp-Girard Fils, founded in Grasse in 1757/58. On July 12, 1883, Louis Antoine Cresp sold his companies to his employee Honoré Joseph Sozio. Honoré Joseph Sozio was a resident of Grasse and, with the date of the complex purchase agreement, received full ownership and use of both of his former employer's companies.

Honoré Joseph Sozio found a joint and several guarantor for the financial burdens and the fulfillment of the obligations arising from the purchase agreement in the person of his future father-in-law, Jean Giraud. Jean Giraud had also been a perfumer, soapmaker, and distiller in Grasse since 1856. From this time on, the company's history is closely linked to the companies Jn Giraud Fils and Sozio & Andrioli, or J & E Sozio, as successors to Cresp-Girard Fils, which undertook extensive modernizations in the manufacturing sector in the following years.

In 1892, Jean Artaud, as a perfumer-distiller and operator of a steam-powered factory, advertised raw materials for perfumery and drugstores, as well as pomades, fragrance oils, flower extracts, distilled water, almond oil, olive oil, and numerous essences. The perfume portfolio included Eau de Cologne and, by 1893, at least 29 of the then-popular soliflores and flower extracts, such as Lily of the Valley, Jockey Club, Opoponax, Stephanotis, Gardenia, New Mown Hay and Reseda, which were exported as far as Canada.

There is no information available about the further history of the house, which advertised in 1893 as "the oldest house in Grasse." The last known trademark registration for "Jean Artaud" with the Commercial Court in Grasse was on June 14, 1893, by the company Sozio & Andrioli. Sozio & Andrioli was a company owned by the then Jean Artaud owner, Honoré Joseph Sozio, and his partner, Monsieur Andrioli, with whom he formed a partnership in 1885. In 1891, the business partners built a new factory on a plot of almost one hectare, featuring a large distillery with ten devices, a steam boiler, a monumental chimney, and a power plant.

A new trademark "Jean Artaud 1703" was filed with the European Union Intellectual Property Office on October 11, 2024, and registered on January 24, 2025. The application is likely based on a current trend towards the reuse of traditional trademarks and most presumably has no real connection to the old house of Jean Artaud from Grasse.