Les Pins (Pines)

The flowering of the art glass industry, in and around the French town of Nancy, owed much to the ambitions of Emile Gallé (1846-1904). Gallé was the most influential designer in the French Art Nouveau style. He was also a poet and a passionate horticulturist. With his creative vision and financial acumen, he had expanded his father’s glass and ceramics factory into a flourishing art industry by the late 1880s. The greatest influence on Gallé’s designs for glass was nature, with its infinitely rich colors and textures. He was also impressed by the writings of Romantic and Symbolist poets, who attempted to describe emotions, sensations, and other aspects of the nonvisible world. In this vase, the decoration evokes the humid, spongy layers of a dark, densely wooded pine forest floor. The term “marquetry” refers to decorative elements that are embedded into the surface of the glass. The technique was developed by Gallé, who patented it in 1898. It is derived from the marquetry technique used to decorate wood furniture, which was also a specialty of Gallé’s atelier.