Style Art Nouveau / Ref.10877

Beautiful antique Art Nouveau style chandelier in gilt bronze and molded glass with languid bodies and nine lights

This gilt bronze chandelier was made in the late 19th century. In accordance with the Art Nouveau aesthetic, curves and flowers constitute the decoration of this very worked art object.

Two women and a man, surrounded by foliage and flowers, are represented in this imposing bronze piece. Their bodies are languid with vegetal volutes, indefinite curves and undulating drapes. The chest of the women with the widespread hair is discovered while the thin and juvenile torso of the man is exhibited. Through their nakedness, their languorous pose, the tranquility of their closed eyelids, emanates a certain sensuality. Modern reinterpretation of the Three Graces or simple representation of the personified nature, this chandelier is composed of Art Nouveau typical motifs.
The Art Nouveau floral repertoire originated in the Japanese art discovered by Westerners during the 1867 World's Fair, which brought them a new and more abstract line, and new motifs, notably this obsession for nature. Associated with the taste at this time for mysteries and for the metamorphoses, the « woman-flower » them will be one of the most appreciated among the artists, as this luminary illustrates, whose the three bodies seem to be confused with the vegetation.
Moreover, the chandelier itself seems to metamorphose into plants, as often in the Art Nouveau style. Nature, which may be a decor or a pattern, sometimes gives the shape of the object designed. Here, the classical structure of the chandelier is to a certain extent preserved, but in a "deformed" way: nature took back her rights.
Thus, the lights have the shape of branches whose the ends are flowers made of pink glass, some are bloomed, others closed. This god and these goddesses of flora thus dress the chandelier, which ends in the lower part by a very preciousness glass beaded curtain, illuminated by a hidden bulb.

This chandelier, where flora and men become mixed up, is characteristic of Art Nouveau aesthetics. The multiple arabesques and undulations that animate it give an impression of movement enhanced by the presence of light and its reflections on the glass. This movement is a recurrence in the Art Nouveau style and in its organic ornamentation, and the dancer Loïe Fuller will reverse the roles by giving body to a flower.