#nancy school

Emile Galle, an Art Nouveau walnut writing desk with exceptional inlaid scenery, c.1900.

Emile Galle, an exhibition quality Art Nouveau walnut writing desk, made c.1900. The desk is built with an upper cupboard, flanking letter racks, a lower shelf, a full-width drawer and long elegant legs joined by curved supports beneath the work surface.

The upper cupboard door is inlaid with a river scene: moored boats beneath a large tree on the river bank, worked in varied woods to create light, shadow, water and foliage. Below, the main writing surface is decorated with floral inlay and butterflies, set into a broad walnut top with rounded corners and moulded edges.

The whole piece is carried by the Art Nouveau language of organic line and natural ornament: curved supports, softened edges, botanical detail and scenic marquetry rather than applied decoration. The inlay uses an array of exotic woods, giving the desk its layered surface of grain, colour and pictorial detail.

A related example is illustrated in Alastair Duncan and Georges de Bartha, Galle Furniture, Woodbridge, 2012, p.235, plate 3. Also see Sotheby’s, Important Design, Paris, 17 December 2020, Lot 11.

View the piece online:

Puritanvalues.com

Follow Puritan Values on Instagram:

Seagull Plate, Émile Gallé, France, ca. 1880

RIJKS Amsterdam

Provenance: on loan from Nationaal Glasmuseum 

d 40 cm × h 4 cm × g 3535 gr

Émile Gallé (1846 – 1904) was an artist and designer who worked in glass, he is considered to be one of the major innovators in the French Art Nouveau movement. Gallé was a founder of the École de Nancy or Nancy School. In 1885 he opened his first shop in Paris at 12 rue Richter, followed by other shops in Frankfurt-am-Maine and London. He also took part on a grand scale in international expositions; beginning with the 1878 Paris Universal Exposition, where his pavilion was thirty meters long.

LAMP 'NENUFARAM'

circa 1905

Louis Majorelle (1859-1926) and Daum

Louis-Jean-Sylvestre Majorelle, usually known simply as Louis Majorelle, (26 September 1859 – 15 January 1926) was a French decorator and furniture designer who manufactured his own designs, in the French tradition of the ébéniste (is the French word for a cabinet-maker). He was one of the outstanding designers of furniture in the Art Nouveau style, and after 1901 formally served as one of the vice-presidents of the École de Nancy.

École de Nancy, or the Nancy School, was the spearhead of the Art Nouveau in France whose inspiration was essentially in plant forms ginkgo, pennywort, giant hogweed, water lily, thistle, gourd and animals such as dragonflies. This alliance was based on research in the extensive use of glass, iron, steel and wood to put the beautiful in the hands of all and thus bring art into people's homes.

Clematis by Henri Bergé (1870-1937).

Photographed by Léna.