Style Neo-Renaissance / Ref.14227

A rare piece by Emile GALLÉ, moon and landscape fantasy after Joseph Vernet

This rare piece by Émile Gallé, bearing his signature, is a creation from the years 1863-1877. The interior is decorated with a landscape scene inspired by a painting by Joseph Vernet, Le Rocher percé, disseminated through engraving.

The shape of the dish is original. In relief, the rim of the circular dish takes up the motif of a crescent moon, symbolized by a face. This is a pareidolia (optical illusion), or the propensity to see an identifiable shape in a natural element (in the clouds, on the illuminated surface of the moon, in a rock, etc.). This iconography has ancient roots, with mythological stories readily associating the moon with a male character.

The creation of this lunar frame model comes from Gengoult Prouvé, who worked for Emile Gallé's father, at the head of the family glassmaking business that his son developed in the 1870s.

A study drawing by Gallé representing the same lunar-shaped piece with a different decoration is in the Musée d'Orsay, in Paris. This model was also used to create blown, molded and wheel-engraved glass ashtrays, called Clair de lune. Finally, the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris keeps an identical work, representing Pierrot and Columbine, known under the title La Lune rousse.

For more information on this work, see the video on MarcMaison.art.