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Lot Essay
This model was first shown in Gallé’s submission to the Exposition Universelle of 1889 in Paris. It is referenced in his ‘Notices d’Exposition (item no. 122) where he describes it as an example of a newly developed color, ‘Noir (hyalite)’: ‘This color may be somewhat somber, but cutting into it can reveal greenish traces that can be judiciously exploited by the engraver, as can be seen [in this piece], cut back to create mists and the wings of a dragonfly’ (Ecrits pour l'Art, p. 337). The form takes its inspiration from Safavid blue and white soft paste porcelain.
The motif of the dragonfly was to become emblematic within Gallé’s oeuvre. The example of this model in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs bears the telling inscription beside the signature, ‘Fait par l’amant des frissonnantes libellules’ (‘Made by the lover of shimmering dragonflies’). Françoise-Thérèse Charpentier has observed that this motif ‘has found thanks to the medium of glass, a beauty like no other, a beauty without precedent, timeless, unique and in harmony with the music of French verse….’ (Gallé, pp. 144-145). In this instance Gallé has drawn on a brief but evocative quotation from a poem by Venice-born French moralist, political thinker, and writer Christine de Pisan on the theme of a widow finding strength within her loneliness and her poverty.
Other examples of this model are in the collections of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, and the Musée de l’Ecole de Nancy. This latter example, which was, at Gallé’s specific request included in the Centennale of the Expositition Universelle of 1900 in Paris, was acquired from the notable collection of Magistrate Henry Hirsch, who was subsequently to commission the spectacular vitrine ‘Aux Libellules’, now in the Musée d’Orsay, Paris. The original version exhibited at the Exposition Universelle of 1889 was acquired by Edmond de Rothschild.
The motif of the dragonfly was to become emblematic within Gallé’s oeuvre. The example of this model in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs bears the telling inscription beside the signature, ‘Fait par l’amant des frissonnantes libellules’ (‘Made by the lover of shimmering dragonflies’). Françoise-Thérèse Charpentier has observed that this motif ‘has found thanks to the medium of glass, a beauty like no other, a beauty without precedent, timeless, unique and in harmony with the music of French verse….’ (Gallé, pp. 144-145). In this instance Gallé has drawn on a brief but evocative quotation from a poem by Venice-born French moralist, political thinker, and writer Christine de Pisan on the theme of a widow finding strength within her loneliness and her poverty.
Other examples of this model are in the collections of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, and the Musée de l’Ecole de Nancy. This latter example, which was, at Gallé’s specific request included in the Centennale of the Expositition Universelle of 1900 in Paris, was acquired from the notable collection of Magistrate Henry Hirsch, who was subsequently to commission the spectacular vitrine ‘Aux Libellules’, now in the Musée d’Orsay, Paris. The original version exhibited at the Exposition Universelle of 1889 was acquired by Edmond de Rothschild.