Émile GALLÉ (1846-1904) - Lot 180

Émile GALLÉ (1846-1904) RARE CRAB CUP, poly-lobed form in dark green multi-layered glass mixed with platinum flakes imitating hard stone. The bowl features an applied crab, the carapace, eyes, legs and claws entirely sculpted and hot-worked in brown glass with iridescent bluish-gray highlights. On the body, a shell is carved in the round with a wheel (minor restoration to one leg). Japanese signature engraved on the tip. Unique piece made in 1904. Minor restoration. H. 8 L. 16.5 cm EXHIBITION : Les Fonds de la Mer, Nancy, 1905. BIBLIOGRAPHY: - La Lorraine Artistique et Littéraire illustrée, May 1905, published by Établissements Albert Barbier, Nancy: in an article entirely devoted to Émile Gallé, model reproduced page 16 on Émile Gallé's showcase, Les Fonds de la Mer. Bibliothèque de Nancy, 755814 ; - Alastair Duncan, The Paris Salon 1895-1914. Volume III: Furniture, Antique Collector's Club 1996, repr. p. 238; - La Lorraine Artistique, May 1, 1905; - La Main aux algues et aux coquillages. Le testament artistique d'Émile Gallé, Musée d'Orsay, June 16 - September 12, 2004; - Cécilia de Saint-Riquier, "Le dernier chef-d'œuvre d'un poète, La Main aux algues et aux coquillages d'Émile Gallé", Coupe File Art, January 19, 2020; - Alastair Duncan and Georges de Bartha, Gallé Furniture, Antique Collectors' Club, 2012, model repr. p. 81 on a period photograph on Les Fonds de la Mer, Émile Gallé's showcase at the 1905 exhibition. One year after Émile Gallé's death, a tribute exhibition was held in Nancy on the theme of Les Fonds de la Mer, featuring a rare collection of artistic pieces created between 1901 and 1904. The period document shows the Fonds de la Mer jewelry display case, with its bases, uprights and frame entirely sculpted with tentacle motifs, which was also presented in the Salle Poirel in 1904 at the Nancy Decorative Arts Exhibition. Seven pieces are displayed and staged in the showcase: - La main aux algues et aux coquillages, 1904 - The Crab Bowl, 1900-1904 - Seahorse vase - Seaweed and shell vase, 1904 - Seaweed and shell vase - Tentacle stamp - The squid Émile Gallé was passionate about the sea, its sunken treasures, its biological world and its underwater flora and fauna. An enthusiast of modern science, he followed with great attention the progress of modern oceanography, which was developing thanks to new technologies and which favored the exploration of this new world. In his acceptance speech to the Académie Stanislas on March 17, 1900, entitled "Le décor symbolique" (The symbolic setting), he reveals the artistic inspiration to come for artists and creation: "These secrets of the Ocean, the brave sounders deliver them to us. They empty marine harvests that turn laboratories into decorative art studios and model museums. They draw and publish these unsuspected materials, the enamels and cameos of the sea, for the artist. Soon, crystalline jellyfish will breathe new shades and curves into glass chalices". As analyzed by Cécilia de Saint-Riquier in her article Le dernier chef-d'œuvre d'un poète : La Main aux algues et aux coquillages by Émile Gallé, ... "we know that during his lifetime, Émile Gallé wanted to create several sets on the theme of the sea bed. He wanted his pieces to give the strong impression of having been left to the sea in ancient times, and for the sea to have reclaimed its rights, invading the objects". The Crab Bowl reflects Émile Gallé's technical mastery and patents, as it displays all the technical complexities of glassmaking: hot sculpting with tongs, multi-layered glass mixed with pearls, metallic oxidations to color the glass and create iridescence, and wheel work to sculpt the shell in the round.