Germain, Thomas

(born 1673, Paris, Fr.—died Aug. 14, 1748, Paris) French silver- and goldsmith. He studied painting as a boy and in 1691 was apprenticed to a silversmith in Rome. From 1706 to the 1720s, back in France, he worked on church commissions, such as a silver-gilt monstrance for Notre-Dame de Paris (1716). He became a master in the guild in 1720, and in 1723 Louis XV appointed him a royal goldsmith. Among his patrons were the queen of Spain, the king and queen of Naples, and the Portuguese court; his workshop produced some 3,000 silver objects for the palace at Lisbon over a 40-year period. He is best known for elaborate objects in Rococo style, though some of his pieces display a more restrained elegance.

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