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Lot Essay
Christie's would like to thank François Le Tacon for his assistance with the cataloguing of this lot.
A student of marine creatures and oceanography, Emile Gallé was fascinated by the aquatic world and by the origins of life itself. So deep was his passion that he had barrels of sea-water filled with marine plants and marine creatures delivered from Brittany to Nancy. He decorated many of his creations with marine motifs, and the mysteries of life and sea evoked by poet Charles Baudelaire found a particular echo in his work. For Baudelaire, the depths of the sea symbolize the unfathomable mysteries of the human soul. For Gallé, the sea is also the place where life began, in mysterious ways. The present lot, with its finely engraved fish emerging from a wave, epitomizes Gallé’s exploration of the enigma of life and of the sea, echoing Baudelaire’s poem ‘L’Homme et la Mer’ from Les Fleurs du Mal:
“Homme, nul n’a sondé le fond de tes abîmes,
O Mer, nul ne connaît tes richesses intimes,
Tant vous êtes jaloux de garder vos secrets.”
(“Nobody has sounded the depths of man’s being.
O Sea, no one knows your intimate roches,
So jealously do you both keep your secrets.”)
– François Le Tacon, leading expert for the work of Émile Gallé and author, among others, of Émile Gallé L'amour de l'Art, les écrits artistiques du Maître de l'Art Nouveau, Éditions Place Stanislas, 2010 and Émile Gallé, ou Le mariage de l'art et de la science, Éditions Messène, Paris, 1995
A student of marine creatures and oceanography, Emile Gallé was fascinated by the aquatic world and by the origins of life itself. So deep was his passion that he had barrels of sea-water filled with marine plants and marine creatures delivered from Brittany to Nancy. He decorated many of his creations with marine motifs, and the mysteries of life and sea evoked by poet Charles Baudelaire found a particular echo in his work. For Baudelaire, the depths of the sea symbolize the unfathomable mysteries of the human soul. For Gallé, the sea is also the place where life began, in mysterious ways. The present lot, with its finely engraved fish emerging from a wave, epitomizes Gallé’s exploration of the enigma of life and of the sea, echoing Baudelaire’s poem ‘L’Homme et la Mer’ from Les Fleurs du Mal:
“Homme, nul n’a sondé le fond de tes abîmes,
O Mer, nul ne connaît tes richesses intimes,
Tant vous êtes jaloux de garder vos secrets.”
(“Nobody has sounded the depths of man’s being.
O Sea, no one knows your intimate roches,
So jealously do you both keep your secrets.”)
– François Le Tacon, leading expert for the work of Émile Gallé and author, among others, of Émile Gallé L'amour de l'Art, les écrits artistiques du Maître de l'Art Nouveau, Éditions Place Stanislas, 2010 and Émile Gallé, ou Le mariage de l'art et de la science, Éditions Messène, Paris, 1995