Provenance
Private collection, Paris
Jean-Claude Brugnot, Paris
Acquired from the above by the present owners, circa 1970
Literature
ILLUSTRATED
Janine Bloch-Dermant, L'Art du Verre en France, Paris, 1974, p. 106
Janine Bloch-Dermant, “Le Décor floral des Verreries d'Emile Gallé, Création, Évolution," L’Estampille, Paris, no. 104, December 1978, p. 17, fig. 3

RELATED EXAMPLES
Brigitte Klesse and Hans Mayr, Glas vom Jugendstil bis heute: Sammlung Gertrud und Dr. Karl Funke-Kaiser, Köln, 1981, p. 269, cat. no. 195 for a "Rose de France" coupe
Alastair Duncan and Georges de Bartha, Glass by Gallé, New York, 1984, p. 75, pl. 96 for a coupe, p. 89, pl. 123 for a smaller vase, p. 114, pl. 163 for a similar form, the “Géologie” vase
William Warmus, Emile Gallé: Dreams into Glass, exh. cat., Corning Museum of Glass, New York, 1984, for the “Géologie” vase
Gallé: Paris, exh. cat., Musée du Luxembourg, Paris, 1985, pp. 44-45 for a coupe
Philippe Garner, Emile Gallé, New York, 1990, p. 36 for a coupe
Valérie Thomas ed., Emile Gallé et le Verre: La Collection du Musée de l'Ecole de Nancy, Paris, 2004, p. 170 for a coupe, p. 175 for a small vase, p. 179 for the "Géologie" vase
Catalogue Essay
A WILD AND METAPHYSIC ROSE

When old men wake to days gone by, and the trail meanders, the field whispers its welcome, and all that’s past floats in air.

At the end of their respective half centuries, both Emile Gallé (1846-1904) and Shiro Kuramata (1934-1991), titans of vastly different times, paid homage to fugitive beauty. These perfect strangers designed two masterworks which bloom at either side of the 20th century as reminders of a common cause: the promise of growth and the prospect of decay.

The present lot, Gallé’s famed double-baluster ‘Rose de France’ (circa 1900), from the artist’s late series of layered and marquetry glass vases by the same name, bristles with potential. Buds break to flowers, the most developed of which crests the shoulder of the vase, a form perfectly suited to mimic the blossom itself and to underscore the idea of upward growth, a conceit shared with the comparably large ‘Rose de France’ coupes in the permanent collections of the Musée de l’Ecole de Nancy and the Kitazawa Museum, Nagano. But the broad cups of those sisters fare open in fervid contrast to the restrained classicism of the present lot—calyxes not yet cracked. In her essay on Gallé’s botanical influences, Valérie Thomas, curator of the Musée de l’Ecole de Nancy, names the object of the artist’s affections: R. gallica, an ancient cultivar nurtured by Greeks and Romans and introduced by the latter to Gaul. Gallé’s twining rose roves back across the spectrum of the years outlining the forms of the past and overgrowing them.

Like many of his contemporaries, Gallé basked in the late 19th-century fashion for Japanese art, which had been promoted to great effect at the 1878 Exposition Universelle in Paris. “The Japanese artist knows uniquely how to translate very natural reproductions into evocative motifs,” Gallé wrote in his Écrits pour l’Art Floriculture. A century later, Shiro Kuramata, a master of “evocative motifs,” designed ‘Miss Blanche’ (1988), a paean to Tennessee Williams’s troubled heroine, who flounces her faded beauty up and down A Streetcar Named Desire. Kuramata’s chair comprises a cacophony of materials—artificial roses fixed in resin, garish aluminum. The effect is one of cruel reassurance, those floating roses constrained to bloom forever. “Function and pragmatism were not Kuramata’s primary aims…” as Deyan Sudjic, director of the London Design Museum, has said of the artist. “He was interested in ideas, emotions and memories, and he used them to create extraordinarily intense [works], full of a sense of
ambiguity about the relationship between surfaces and materials... ” Like Gallé, Kuramata avidly researched new methods and materials, and this principle of exploration lends ‘Miss Blanche’ a restless energy, as Gallé’s experiments with glass marquetry, which he had patented in 1898, roil the surface of his ‘Rose de France.'

“I don’t love flowers and I don’t like having them,” insisted Robert Mapplethorpe in the midst of his pistils, those late flower pictures of the 1980s. Mapplethorpe resisted the urge to sway to their stems, but then he shot them again and again; and the viewer flushes. As he brushed so close to ruin, Mapplethorpe continued to provoke: dangerous, endangered orchids, mums and roses startle with lurid force, “calling attention to the pictures that are hidden from view,” as John Ashbery has said of them. “They radiate anxiety”—and joy.

Gallé’s vase, Kuramata’s chair, and Mapplethorpe’s still life are vase, chair, and still life in name only, and they’re anything but still. To borrow further from Ashbery, the volume of these artists’s flowers, monumental compositions alike, are undermined by implied fragility, a principle characteristic of their shared subject, the bloom and fade of the fervid rose.

Alex Heminway

PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT EUROPEAN COLLECTION

116

Émile Gallé

Important “Rose de France” vase

circa 1900
Applied, carved and marquetry cased glass.
17 1/4 in. (43.8 cm) high, 9 3/8 in. (23.8 cm) diameter
Engraved with Gallé.

Estimate
$400,000 - 600,000

Sold for $422,500

Contact Specialist
Meaghan Roddy
Head of Sale
New York
+ 1 212 940 1266

Design Masters

New York Auction 16 December 2014 6pm

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Rare "Pacifique" mirror
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102
Alberto Giacometti
Rare “Greek” table lamp, small model
Estimate $100,000 - 150,000
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103
Charles Rohlfs
"Revolving music stand and holder"
Estimate $50,000 - 70,000
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104
Max Ingrand
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105
Charlotte Perriand
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Estimate $250,000 - 350,000
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106
Charlotte Perriand
Free-form table
Estimate $150,000 - 200,000
Sold for $182,500
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107
Axel Einar Hjorth
Set of eight "Futurum" dining chairs
Estimate $70,000 - 90,000
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108
Alvar Aalto
"Hand Grenade" ceiling light, model no. A110
Estimate $5,000 - 7,000
Sold for $6,250
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109
Gerrit Thomas Rietveld
Important early armchair
Estimate $150,000 - 200,000
Sold for $266,500
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110
Alvar Aalto
Rare dish, model no. 9748-50, from the "Eskimoerindens skinnbuxa" series
Estimate $8,000 - 12,000
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111
Alvar Aalto
Rare dish, model no. 9752, from the "Eskimoerindens skinnbuxa" series
Estimate $12,000 - 18,000
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112
Gio Ponti
Early coffee table from a private commission
Estimate $16,000 - 24,000
Sold for $32,500
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113
Frederick John Kiesler
Pair of armchairs, designed for Charles and Marguerita Mergentime, New York
Estimate $50,000 - 70,000
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114
Poul Henningsen
Pair of ten-armed “Cascade" ceiling lights, with type 1/1 shades
Estimate $30,000 - 40,000
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115
Gio Ponti
Pair of rare wingback chairs
Estimate $40,000 - 60,000
Sold for $218,500
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116
Émile Gallé
Important “Rose de France” vase
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $422,500
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117
Arne Jacobsen
Tall-backed "Oxford" chair, designed for the dining hall, St. Catherine's College, Oxford
Estimate $25,000 - 35,000
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118
Gio Ponti
Early center table, from a private commission
Estimate $30,000 - 40,000
Sold for $50,000
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119
Fulvio Bianconi
Vase, model no. 4323, from the "A Macchie" series
Estimate $25,000 - 30,000
Sold for $41,250
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120
Gerrit Thomas Rietveld
Modular desk, from the Redelé house, Dordrecht
Estimate $20,000 - 30,000
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121
Gerrit Thomas Rietveld
"Moolenbeek" armchair, from the Redelé house, Dordrecht
Estimate $40,000 - 60,000
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122
Gerrit Thomas Rietveld
Cabinet, from the Redelé house, Dordrecht
Estimate $15,000 - 20,000
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123
Fulvio Bianconi
Rare "Gatto" vase, from the "A Macchie" series
Estimate $30,000 - 40,000
Sold for $52,500
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124
Piero Fornasetti
Unique “Architettura” illuminated double trumeau
Estimate $80,000 - 100,000
Sold for $104,500
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125
Henry van de Velde
Pair of "Bloemenwerf" chairs
Estimate $30,000 - 40,000
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126
Hector Guimard
Rare table lamp, from the Maison Coilliot, Lille
Estimate $70,000 - 90,000
Sold for $80,500
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127
Fulvio Bianconi
Rare "Con Fiori" vase
Estimate $5,000 - 7,000
Sold for $13,750
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128
Marc du Plantier
Large dining table
Estimate $100,000 - 150,000
Sold for $110,500
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129
This lot is no longer available.
130
Pierre Legrain
Pair of wall lights, from the study of Roger Martin du Gard, Paris
Estimate $60,000 - 80,000
Sold for $68,500
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131
Pierre Legrain
Pair of wall lights, from the study of Roger Martin du Gard, Paris
Estimate $70,000 - 90,000
Sold for $74,500
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132
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133
Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann
"SAD 29" modular bookcase, model no. 2431NR
Estimate $250,000 - 350,000
Sold for $266,500
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134
D.I.M. (Décoration Intérieure Moderne)
Side table
Estimate $30,000 - 50,000
Sold for $74,500
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135
Jean Dunand
Gourd-form vase
Estimate $20,000 - 30,000
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136
This lot is no longer available.
137
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138
Séraphin Soudbinine
Sculpture
Estimate $40,000 - 60,000
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139
Hans Coper
Important and large goblet form with vertical impressions
Estimate $60,000 - 90,000
Sold for $164,500
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140
Ron Arad
"Rietveld" chair, executed during a Vitra Design Museum workshop, Weil am Rhein, Germany
Estimate $100,000 - 150,000
Sold for $122,500
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141
Peter Voulkos
Untitled Stack
Estimate $40,000 - 60,000
Sold for $62,500
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Design Masters

New York Auction 16 December 2014 6pm

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Provenance

Literature

Catalogue Essay

116

Émile Gallé

Important “Rose de France” vase

Design Masters

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