Offered by Galerie Tourbillon
Rare baluster-shaped vase,
multi-layered glass with powder and gold foil inclusions.
Wheel-carved cameo decoration,
ornated with maple leaves and seeds.
With hammered background.
Engraved signature " Gallé " enhanced with gold
Perfect condition
France
circa 1900
height 36,5 cm
diameter 14 cm
Biography :
Émile Gallé (1846-1904) was one of the most outstanding figures of the applied arts of his time and one of the pioneers of Art Nouveau, founder and first president of the School of Nancy in 1901.
After his apprenticeship in the glass trades in Meisenthal, and ceramics at the Saint-Clement Faience Factory, Emile Gallé was associated with his father's business in the manufacture of earthenware and glassware since 1867. He represented his father at the 1867 World Fair in Paris where he obtained an honorable mention for glassware and at the World and International Exhibition from 1872 to Lyon where he won a gold medal in class 33 (porcelain and crystals).
His approach wqs not just theoretical, he did not fear indeed to learn glass-blowing. He added to this a good knowledge of cabinetmaking and especially the family passion for the natural sciences and especially for plants that led to drawing. Gallé was in Nancy the student of Dominique-Alexandre Godron, naturalist and doctor. He carried out studies on plants, animals, insects. He was elected secretary of the Central Horticultural Society of Nancy in 1877.
The same year, Emile Gallé took over the family business and expanded its activities to cabinetmaking in 1885. Already noticed at the Exposition “Earth and Glass” in 1884, Gallé was dedicated to the Universal Exhibition of Paris in 1889 by three awards for his ceramics, glassware and furniture (including a Grand Prix for his glassware), where he celebrated the lost provinces of the Alsace and Lorraine regions and developped, through his symbolic decoration, the theme of patriotism. On this occasion, Gallé was made an officer of the Legion of Honor.
From that date, Emile Gallé intensively developped his technical and aesthetic research on glass work, a field in which he developped and created new manufacturing processes. His glassworks were designed in Meisenthal until 1894, when he opened a crystal factory whose firing took place in May 1894 in his company in Nancy. Emile Gallé's research led in 1898 to the filing of two patents, for "a kind of decoration and patina on crystal" and "a kind of marquetry of glasses and crystals" by depositing small inclusions of glass in the molten paste. His pieces were then reworked by engraving, at the wheel for the most precious, hydrofluoric acid for the most common, his engravers-decorators thus giving a cameo decor on a lined or multilayered glass.
After the death of Emile Gallé in 1904, his wife took over the management of the business. In 1907, the company name “ Etablissements Gallé ” was created. His company continued to produce until 1936. Each piece bears the signature of Gallé with many variants.
