Vase
Nancy, Manufacture Daum, ca. 1909
Colourless, blue and green glass
White, pink and yellow powdered glass
H 29,0 cm
Musée Ariana, Geneva, V 0097
Most of the glass objects produced in the late 19th and early 20th century, that differ from objects of daily use in terms their artistic quality, are generally referred to as Art Nouveau or Jugendstil glass. Works by Gallé or Tiffany, for example, come to mind. However, the spectrum of glassware produced by a large number of manufacturers is incredibly broad, both in terms of the quality of the design and the execution. The vessels – often vases – have diverse shapes, the decorative motifs range from plants and animals to geometric patterns, the techniques range from coloured multi-layered glass with engraved or etched embellishment to enamel painting, powder coating, iridescence and marquetry, a type of inlay developed by Gallé.
The foot of the vase displayed here is engraved with Daum, the cross of Lorraine and Nancy, and additionally with the number 42. The Daum manufactory was a family business. In 1878 Jean Daum acquired a glassworks in Nancy. His sons Auguste and Antonin took over the management of the company in 1887, which until then had mainly produced glass tableware. Like Emile Gallé, the Daums participated in the 1889 World Fair in Paris; they were so impressed by Gallé’s work that they subsequently switched their production to artistic glass.
The exhibited vase is an impressive example of the quality of the glasses from the Daum manufactory. It consists of two parts, the dark blue opaque base and the multi-coloured body of the vase. At the bottom of the vase body, a dollop of folded molten glass has been repeatedly drawn upwards with pliers and attached to the sides of the vessel. The body of the vase is made of multi-coloured glass with pigment powder fused into it. It is partially overlaid – in the lower part with green glass, for example –carved and cut. It would go too far to list all the technical refinements. Just one more is worth mentioning: the blue flowers of the violets were formed individually by using a separate small batch of glass for each petal, as is easily apparent based on the overlaps and the longitudinal structures in each leaf.
The dating “around 1909” is suggested because Daum presented a similar piece at the Exposition internationale de l'Est de la France, which took place in Nancy in 1909.