In Anjou, the Chevillard goldsmith company has been perpetuating know-how combining heritage and spirituality for a century.

Every morning, Antoine rides his motorbike to the Chevillard Frères workshops in Avrillé, near Angers (Maine-et-Loire). The 38-year-old is elegant and loves beautiful things, and it shows. “When you’ve been a goldsmith for four generations, it’s in your blood!” explains the head of this unusual company. Today, we’re heading to the vast, high-ceilinged workshop where crucifixes of all sizes, candlesticks and chalices await restoration before returning to a church or presbytery in one or another corner of France.

“There are centuries of history here!” marvels Raphaël, one of the workshop’s fourteen employees, a cloth in his hand. The house also specializes in luxury furniture and lighting. Like this mirror commissioned by a great Parisian restaurant, which Mathis is working on a little further away. Framed by hollowed-out rectangular tubes, the structure is rounded at each corner by solid metal, “easier to handle,” the director explains.

Gold, bronze, brass… Antoine has always loved being in contact with materials. A graduate of a business school specializing in luxury goods, he started out in fine jewelry, Place Vendôme, in Paris. He stayed there for ten years, before reorienting himself towards entrepreneurship. In 2018, just twelve days after the start of this period of reconversion, the former manager of Chevillard (outside the family, he had bought the company from Antoine’s grandfather), called on him to take over the company.

A strong heritage value

“I had always dreamed of it, I saw it as a sign,” emphasizes this father of four, a committed Christian. “It’s a source of pride for the family and for the customers, there is a strong heritage value at Chevillard,” analyzes Antoine, referring to the century-old company. The company is now run as a family: co-managers, Antoine and his brother Bertrand were recently joined by their sister Sophie, a gilder.

True to its roots, the company continues to put its know-how at the service of the Church. A joy for Antoine, who loves “seeing craftsmen work with passion and satisfied customers”. Like this priest discovering a freshly restored chalice: “He told us that he had been converted to the real presence of Christ by holding this noble object in his hands,” says Antoine. A beautiful testimony that makes one humble.