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Daum Nancy "Spider and Web" Inkwell
$3,500
This exquisite insect-themed inkwell by Daum features a lid adorned with applied decorations of a European garden spider, bees, and dragonflies with internal gold foil, allowing the appliqués to contrast alluringly with the inkwell’s frosted body. The inkwell’s body, rendered in mottled orange and green, showcases acid-etched spiderwebs. The design draws inspiration from a renowned lacquer screen by 19th-century Japanese artist Shibata Zeshin. Like Daum’s inkwell, Zeshin’s screen depicts various insects, including butterflies, dragonflies, wasps, a ladybird, and a grasshopper, all caught in a large spider’s web. Zeshin, a member of the Dragon Pond Society—an artist's society in the Meiji era (1868–1889) focused on cultural exchange—helped Japanese and Western artists exhibit their works across borders, including at the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle. There, the Daum brothers likely encountered Zeshin's screen at the Japan pavilion, influencing their design.
- Product Details
- Curator's Notes
Item #: YG-21589
Artist: Daum Nancy
Country: France
Circa: 1900
Dimensions: 3" height, 5" diameter.
Materials: Glass
Signed: “Daum Nancy” with the Croix de Lorraine
Literature: Büttiker, Katharina, and Georges De Bartha. Daum Nancy : Daum FrèRes - Verreries de Nancy, Glaskunst Aus Der Zeit 1892-1932. Galerie Katharina Büttiker, 2000., p.54
The term Intercalaire translates from the French to mean "divider" 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.