Emile Gallé

A rare and important 'Rose de France' vase, circa 1903

Footnotes

Provenance
1987, with Macklowe Gallery, New York
Private collection, Japan
New Art Est-Ouest Auctions, 18 Sep 2009, Lot 167
Private collection, Tokyo, Japan (acquired from the above by the present owner)

Literature
Emile Gallé, Emile Gallé, New York, Parkstone Press Ltd., 2014, cover and p. 128 for this example illustrated (misdiscribed as 'Orchid vase')
Ray and Lee Grover , Carved and decorated European art glass, Charles E. Tuttle company, 1970, p.173 for a similar example
Tom Newark, Emile Gallé, Courbevoie, Edition Soline, 1990, p.13
Victor Arwas, Glass Art Nouveau to Art Deco, 1st ed. London, Academy Editions, 1977, p.77 for a similar example
Viktor Arwas, Glass Art Nouveau to Art Deco, 2nd ed. London, Academy Editions, 1987, cover and p.55 for this example illustrated.
Victor Arwas, Art nouveau the French aesthetic, London, Andreas Papadakis publisher, 2002, p. 475



Flowers and botany permeated the work of Emile Gallé, who called it a hereditary passion passed down from his father. This passion would be made manifest in all facets of Gallé's art – from his painted ceramics to his furniture and glass. Throughout his career, he would strive, primarily through experimentation, toward the truest form of representation of nature in his art, transcending it from painted and enamelled decorations to fully realised three-dimensional renderings.

This technique would only come about in the last stage of Gallé's life in 1900, when he unveiled the 'Rose de France', commissioned by the Horticultural Society of Nancy in honour of its honorary president, Léon Simon. The cup, now in the Musée de l'École de Nancy, is widely recognised as his masterpiece, and was one of the first modern glass works to experiment with applied high relief decoration, or Sculpture de Verre. The inspiration from the work is rooted in the patriotic notion of its subject, the Galicia Rose, or Rose de France, which, according to legend, can only grow on the soil of its homeland.

The patriotic sentiment also resonates with the resolution of the Treaty of Frankfurt in 1871, through which France lost a substantial area north of Nancy. It was from this area, Metz, that Simon initially hailed, and his relocation from Metz to Nancy was seen as a patriotic statement, and is said to have been the inspiration for the aforementioned cup.

For the last years of his life, Gallé would experiment with the Sculpture de Verre technique, producing studies of several flowers native to his beloved Nancy. Yet, the Galicia Rose would be his recurring subject throughout this period. Its purity and symbolism, combined with its technical complexity, have elevated these late works as the pinnacle of his production.