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Daum Nancy “Rain Scene” Cameo Glass Table Lamp
$39,500
This cameo glass “Rain Scene” intercalaire lamp by Daum features low-relief delicately enameled windswept silver birch trees showered by engraved ‘rain’ on a green-to-lavender ombre background resembling dusk or dawn. The lamp's design was named after the fifth month of the French Republican calendar, lasting from late January to February. As one looks at the vase, you can palpably feel the force of the wind and rain, as boughs of birches keel to the left. Streaks of enamel and chiseled lines strike through the acid-etched surface, creating scintillating motes of transparency. The diagonal curtain of rain represented by fine discontinuous lines evokes the way rain was depicted in Hiroshige's "Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi bridge and Atake." This Japanese artistic movement liked to depict scenes of rain or snow, ukiyo-e, meaning "images of the floating world" marked by the impermanence of all things. This trend had a significant influence on the école de Nancy, founded in 1901 by Antonin Daum, Louis Majorelle, Emile Gallé, Victor Prouvé, and Eugène Vallin.
- Product Details
- Curator's Notes
Item #: EL-16308
Artist: Daum Nancy
Country: France
Circa: 1900
Dimensions: 13.5" height, 5.5" diameter.
Materials: Cameo Glass, Bronze
Signed: “Daum Nancy” with the Croix de Lorraine
Literature: A similar lamp is featured on the front cover of French Cameo Glass by Henry and Berniece Blount. 160 pages; Publisher: Wallace-Homestead Book Company, 1st Edition, 1968.
The term Intercalaire translates from the French to mean "inserted" and signifies the process of applying two layers of decoration to a piece of glass. The first layer is covered with a glass skin that ultimately provides the surface for the second layer of decoration. The technique was first developed by Eugène Kremer from Meisenthal (1890) in collaboration with Emile Gallé. The art of painting between layers of glass was first patented in
Berlin on February 21, 1896 and in Paris almost a year later on March 23, 1897. Shortly before 1900, the Daum brothers registered a similar kind of decoration that they called décoration intercalaire à grand feu (1899). Charles Schneider, who designed for Daum, had modified the technique to include the application of colored flecks and streaks of enamel paint between layers of glass Before applying the enamel paint onto a piece of glass, the glass had to be completely cooled down. After the enamel application, the glass was then repeatedly overlaid with additional layers and reheated. Because of their magical appearance, vases with intercalaire decoration immediately enjoyed huge success at the Paris World Fair of 1900. However, the steps of recurrent heating and cooling down of the glass required extremely delicate manufacturing procedures and the Daum brothers eventually stopped producing intercalaire vases around 1904.