Object Description
This exquisite Art Nouveau glass vase was crafted by the preeminent French artist and craftsman Émile Gallé. The vase depicts Lake Como in Italy as seen in twilight, the sky a warm orange-red, the lake’s water pale blue, and the tree’s in the foreground cast in dark, shadow silhouette. This remarkable range of surfaces—sky, tree, mountain—and variety of colours is a result of the process by which this vase was made—namely, cameo etching. Glasses of a variety of colours were fused together in layers by Gallé, then he etched and carved the surface of the glass to reveal layers of colour, as if sculpting into an onion. The effect is truly remarkable: Gallé has managed to create a landscape, beautiful in every respect, all using glass and only glass.
The vase is signed ‘Gallé’.