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Lot Essay
This exceptional flacon and stopper by Emily Gallé is one of a tiny number of recorded variations on a theme. A flacon of this form - with applications, a twisted stem-like handle, and a similar tall stopper conceived as rising scrolls - was executed in 1892 for a most illustrious client, the aesthete and poet Count Robert de Montesquiou, and is now in the collection of the Musée d'Orsay, Paris. It bears the title 'Raisins mystérieux'. As with the present example, it incorporates an inscription within the decoration. Another version of this model, again on the theme of the vine, is dated 1900 and bears an inscribed verse by Charles Baudelaire in celebration of wine. This piece was featured among the masterworks presented in the Corning Museum of Glass 1984 exhibition 'Emile Gallé Dreams into Glass'.
In both the above referenced examples, the artist has chosen a motif from nature, the vine and its fruit, and endowed it with a poetic, symbolist expressiveness. Here, in essence, was the fulfilment of Gallé's motivating desire to use both the intrinsic characteristics of the glass - its colours, its surface textures, and internal effects - together with its form and theme as a multi-layered opportunity for artistic expression. And at the heart of his art was Gallé's celebratory exploration of the vast and awesome mystery of the natural world as we experience it in the cycle of the day and of the seasons, and in the wonder of nature's eternal processes of renewal.
The previously unrecorded flacon presented here shares its form and its Symbolist aura with the two cited works, but its theme is distinct. The vessel's surface is animated with a number of fireflies, carved in low and high relief. Foil inclusions convey the flickering glow they emit. A Latin inscription provides a poetic inspiration, referencing these glowing insects and evoking light itself in all its magic and mystery.
In both the above referenced examples, the artist has chosen a motif from nature, the vine and its fruit, and endowed it with a poetic, symbolist expressiveness. Here, in essence, was the fulfilment of Gallé's motivating desire to use both the intrinsic characteristics of the glass - its colours, its surface textures, and internal effects - together with its form and theme as a multi-layered opportunity for artistic expression. And at the heart of his art was Gallé's celebratory exploration of the vast and awesome mystery of the natural world as we experience it in the cycle of the day and of the seasons, and in the wonder of nature's eternal processes of renewal.
The previously unrecorded flacon presented here shares its form and its Symbolist aura with the two cited works, but its theme is distinct. The vessel's surface is animated with a number of fireflies, carved in low and high relief. Foil inclusions convey the flickering glow they emit. A Latin inscription provides a poetic inspiration, referencing these glowing insects and evoking light itself in all its magic and mystery.