Jean-Claude Novaro is considered one of the greatest contemporary glass masters. Auctioneers and art critics compare him to Daum, Lalique, Marinot or the Gallé of the twenty-first century. The youngest of four children, he was born in the south of France and grew up in  in Biot, a village renowned for its glass blowing.   At the age of 14,he left school "delighted to have learned nothing", to join the Biot Glass Factory under the protective wing of its founder Eloi Monod. Apprenticed in 1957, at the age of 20 Jean-Claude Novaro became master glassmaker and "head of the hall" and responsible for training from 1973 to 1977. During this period, he led a team of 40 glass craftsmen under his tutelage. In 1984, Jean-Claude Novaro set up his own workshop in Biot on the family lands of Les Vignasses.