Émile Gallé, Gallé or Établissements Gallé, what’s in a name?
Thoughts on a thorny debate about the Gallé glass nomenclature.
There is an old but recurring debate among Émile Gallé’s amateurs and experts, about the proper designation of his company’s products, especially glassware, over the years, specifically whether and how to differentiate what was made during his life and what came after. When it comes to industrial glass series, as opposed to his artworks, “Émile Gallé”, “Gallé” and “Établissements Gallé” are still commonly and concurrently used today, be it by antiques’ dealers, auctioneers, collectors and even museum curators.
It’s worth noting that this kind of debate appears to be specific to the Gallé company, at least compared to other famous art glassworks in Lorraine, also known after their founder’s name (e.g. Daum, Muller Frères, Delatte), who were entrepreneurs rather than designers. Authorship in applied and industrial art from that time usually took a back seat to the entrepreneurship, except in part for prestigious exhibitions, where designers were celebrated, while still deprived, in general, of their signature on the artwork. The abridged company’s name always prevails: the case is clearer still for companies named after their location, like Saint-Louis or Baccarat. One might consider as a similar case to Gallé, the switch of signature happening after René Lalique’s death in 1945, from R. Lalique to Lalique, and the change in his company’s product line under his son Marc.1 So great were the stature and influence of Émile Gallé as an artist, that in his case, the attribution was understood as an artistic one, and not merely a generic manufacturer one. From there arose the question of what became this attribution after his death. This paper will review the state of play on the subject, as well as submit a slightly different attribution system.
This discussion comes as the consequence of the progress made these past 30 years on the history of Émile Gallé’s art glass, particularly by François Le Tacon. The glass master’s history was, of course, already well-known before that, thanks to an already large number of biographies and exhibitions from the late 1970s to the 1980s – from Philippe Garner’s book (1976) to Françoise-Thérèse Charpentier and Philippe Thiébaut’s foundational exhibition in the Musée d’Orsay (1985-1986) among other worthy contributions – but his company’s successors very much less so. There simply wasn’t any interest at the time in the glassmaker’s later history and lesser commercial production, which did not feature at all in these studies, except by honest mistake (some pieces wrongfully attributed to Émile Gallé’s time for lack of information)2 or by deception.3
In his seminal paper on the Établissements Gallé’s techniques and marks, in 1993, Le Tacon was the first to underline the wilful confusion maintained by some actors in the Art market (which had just crashed after Émile Gallé’s works had reached record-level sales two years earlier) between Émile Gallé and his heirs, and to state the need to properly describe pieces made after 1904 as Gallé’s, not Émile Gallé’s:4
Parfois dans les ventes publiques en dehors de Nancy, même celles d’études prestigieuses, on entretient la confusion en indiquant au catalogue, comme œuvre d’Émile Gallé, des pièces qui ont été produites parfois vingt-cinq ans après sa mort.
Or la plus grande part des verreries que l’on trouve sur le marché ont été produites après 1904 soit par la maison Gallé dirigée par Henriette Gallé-Grimm, soit par les Établissements Gallé dirigés par Émile Lang et Paul Perdrizet. Ces pièces doivent donc uniquement être dénommées Gallé du nom de l’Établissement où elles ont été produites. C’est d’ailleurs la marque qu’elles portent.
This pronouncement put Le Tacon apart from glass experts, like Janine Bloch-Dermant5, who had discussed the continuation of Émile Gallé by the Établissements Gallé, noted the decline in artistic quality, while formally keeping the former’s attribution for the latter’s art glass. Le Tacon has been advocating this nomenclature in his following numerous studies on Émile Gallé and the Établissements Gallé since then, as well as in his work as an expert and an adviser to collectors around the world.
Others followed suit, such as Philippe Olland, who, in his Dictionnaire des maîtres verriers (whose second edition came out last year), has fully embraced François Le Tacon’s stance, with a small modification. In a lengthy note at the end of his book, Olland quotes a statement he had already made in his first book on French Art glass, L’Art verrier 1900 (Faton, 2007). After comparing two widely different descriptions of the same relief Clematis series, the first, a misleading one, with the attribution to Émile Gallé without further precision, and the second, the correct one, to Gallé, with a 1925-1931 chronological range, the author extolls the need to adopt a strict naming scheme:6
Il est donc évident que la moindre des logiques (pour ne pas employer le mot honnêteté) voudrait que les objets de verre (concernant Gallé) soient présentés sous les dénominations suivantes :
GALLÉ Émile (1846-1904), pour ceux fabriqués avant 1904 ;
GALLÉ (Établissements), pour ceux fabriqués après 1904.
A slight problem with this rule, other than being oversimplifying, as we shall see, is that the Gallé company did not take the Établissements Gallé name before 1907. Olland then proceeds to add that, 9 years later (the note dates from his book’s first edition, and it’s repeated without a change in the second one), many experts, antiques’ dealers and auctioneers have heeded this recommendation, even though many still have not, especially outside of France, singling out Germans as the worst offenders (!).
Thirty years after Le Tacon’s initial recommendation, it is certainly true that his lobbying and the dissemination of his remarkable work, among other factors, have had a major impact on the Gallé glass market. But the field is still heavily fractured.
As an academic studying the history of Émile Gallé’s company, I can only encourage every effort made to foster a better knowledge of the subject among the public. Nevertheless, my view is that the Émile Gallé/Établissements Gallé distinction is inadequate from a qualitative and technical point of view, at least for the industrial series, i.e., the overwhelming part of the glass made during the period 1900-1914. Its only informative value pertains to the date a piece was made, before or after Émile Gallé’s death, and in a significant number of cases this is subject to review because the chronological determination has been made on dubious ground. Moreover, as I’ve shown in a previous paper, Émile Gallé’s control of the day-to-day operation of his company was only nominal for extended periods of time in his last three years, when he was absent from Nancy on medical leave or too ill to work: by this measure, 1902 is probably the point from which he trusted most of the overseeing to his wife, Henriette, and his factory’s manager, Émile Lang. This is not to say that he did not work until his death: some of his greatest, most inspired, masterpieces, like the Main aux coquillages or the Coupes Libellules date from 1904, as the exhibitions held that year do attest. But did he review any and every order of small industrial pieces like he might have done a decade earlier?
An additional problem lies in the perception the 1904 date creates, because of the premium put on Émile Gallé’s work, compared to his successors’. While this contrast is fully justified, to say the least, for his artistic creations, and more generally for the higher end of the company’s product line, it is not so for the rest, which made up the bulk of its considerable output – as the present day market for Gallé glass demonstrates. There is therefore much to discuss, and this paper intends to put forward a different, improved, I hope, proposal to designate the different kinds of Gallé-signed glass.
A survey of the nomenclature in use for Émile Gallé and Établissements Gallé glass
Museums
When it comes to attribution, the norm is set by art historians and museums. Leading French national museums, with premium collections in applied arts, began buying or receiving artwork from Émile Gallé in his lifetime, as part of the system of the State official support for decorative arts as well as fine arts. They also ceased to add to these collections almost immediately after his death. But even these prestigious institutions are not immune to inconsistencies, when it comes to the description and labelling of Émile Gallé’s or Établissements Gallé’s works, and there is nowhere near a consensus between them as to the right way to proceed.
The Musée des Arts Décoratifs (MAD) in Paris, one of the world-leading institutions in the field, whose most impressive pieces were obtained directly from Émile Gallé at his exhibitions, including the Paris 1900 Exposition universelle, for the vase Chardon for instance (inv. 9363), accepted as a donation in 1990 a giant Glycines lamp (80 cm, inv. 990.342, see the picture above) from ca. 1925: it chose to label it as coming from “Émile Gallé (atelier)”, rather than “Établissements Gallé”, still keeping the association to “Émile Gallé” at a time when even the company had dropped the first name from its corporate identity. Still, the designation “atelier” (workshop) remains a useful one, inasmuch as it captures the collective identity of the glasswork. It’s being used by other museums, such as the Hermitage in Saint-Petersburg.
Just across the Seine from the MAD, the Musée d’Orsay is where most of the surviving archives from Émile Gallé were deposited by his heirs in 1986; it harbours impressive collections including such iconic masterpieces as La Main aux algues et aux coquillages (inv. OAO 1907, 1904) or the Eaux dormantes (inv. OAO 1295, 1889-1890) vase from Roger-Marx’s collection. Unsurprisingly, the museum holds very few works from the Gallé company after 1904. It nevertheless was bequested, in 1975, a Mk VI-signed, pagoda-shaped Liserons lamp (inv. OAP 192): while being correctly dated from the 1925-1930 period, the lamp is assigned to Émile Gallé.
Still in Paris, the Musée des Arts et Métiers, at the CNAM, owns a few post-1904 pieces, which were acquired in 1906, at the same time as their impressive Gallé display cabinet by Auguste Herbst. Among them is a Mk II-signed specimen of the Paysages noirs from 1904, an interesting red sunset series. Recognising the work’s posthumous nature (from the starred signature), the museum has chosen to split its authorship between a “material author” (Cristallerie d’Émile Gallé) and an “intellectual” one (Émile Gallé). This is an original solution worth remembering, as a rewording of the classic maker/designer distinction.
In Nancy, the Musée de l’École de Nancy stands, almost by nature, as the reference institution when it comes to all Émile Gallé-related matters. The catalogue of its vast collection of glass, among which 40 or so pieces are dated from 1904 or later, does not differentiate, in its presentation, between Émile Gallé and his heirs.7 But this catalogue, issued for the centenary of Émile Gallé’s death, in 2004, reflects the dominant practice at the time. In more recent exhibitions catalogues, the museum has switched to a classic double attribution scheme: Émile Gallé for all pieces up to 1904, Établissements Gallé for the later ones.8
Elsewhere, the picture is often less satisfying, to say the least. More often than not, all Gallé-signed glass, even post-1904, is attributed to “Émile Gallé (1846-1904)”, without further detail. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston blithely attributes a MK VI-signed spinner-shaped relief vase to Émile Gallé (1846-1904) as well as a fake lamp, mistakenly dated “about 1920”. The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston gives a double attribution with Émile Gallé (as designer) and Établissements Gallé (as maker) to most of its post-1904 pieces like this Plums relief vase, but not in a consistent way, sometimes leaving blank the designer information. The Chrysler Museum of Arts has “Émile Gallé (French, 1846-1904)” as the artist and “Cristallerie d’Émile Gallé (French, 19th century)” as the manufacturer of its Elephants specimen, which is correctly dated ca. 1925 on the same page. The Museum für Gestaltung Zürich carefully distinguishes the designer (Émile Gallé) from the manufacturer (Établissements Gallé) and gives a date for both, but fails sometimes, such as with this Mk II-signed Érables sycomore candy box (missing its lid) dated from 1927 (?!). Even the Corning Museum of Glass fails the consistency test, with some pieces from the 1920s, like this correctly dated lamp foot, attributed to “Émile Gallé (French, 1846-1904)” as the maker, and others, from the same period, like this Tomatoes relief vase, to “Établissements Gallé”. This Prunelles vase is attributed to Émile Gallé with a 1908-1913 date, when in fact it should be given to the Établissements Gallé with a ca. 1925-1930 range.
To identify the maker, the Kunstpalast, in Dusseldorf, has an original solution, choosing “Maison Gallé (1846-1936)” to solve the problem coming from the changing name of the company over the years (Gallé-Reinemer, Émile Gallé, Cristallerie d’Émile Gallé, Établissements Émile Gallé, Établissements Gallé SA). As far as I know, this is the only major museum to do so, and it’s an elegant solution, inspired perhaps by Le Tacon’s example,9 underlining the continuity of the company over three generations, from Charles Gallé to Émile Gallé’s heirs, with a clear but neutral term. It can designate the simple retailer and editor that was, at its beginning, in 1846, the Gallé-Reinemer business, the ceramic and glass studio that the Émile Gallé company became (in large part) in the 1880s, as well as the full-blown manufacturer (punt intended) that were the Cristallerie d’Émile Gallé and the Établissements Gallé later. As a bonus point, “Maison Gallé” was an informal and common way to refer to the company throughout the period, as press clippings show, for instance. This does not address the designer’s identity question for a given object, though. Here, the Dusseldorf museum gives Émile Gallé as the creator for all glass made during his life (e.g. an early Wisteria series), and leaves the later production without designer’s attribution (here for a 1920s’ Grape vase). My understanding is that it’s a work in progress, as shown by remnants of an earlier attribution scheme (here a Rosehip vase), and that the museum’s internal database provides better information on the designer’s identity, when available.
One could go on and on: a systematic survey is beyond the scope of this article. What these few examples show, is that the overgeneralisation in attribution can be compounded by mistakes in the basic chronology of the company’s production. I suppose it’s a bit unfair to point them out like this, and the goal here is certainly not to name and shame the less accurate among those museums, but to underline the general absence of any agreement over the correct way to reference these objects. One way to look at these inconsistencies from curatorial institutions, is of course to recognise them as the product of the iterative process of the acquisitions over a long period. Most, if not all, of these late Gallé glass pieces were acquired in the second half of the 20th century, often before significant historical research on Émile Gallé and the Établissements Gallé took place, and almost always as gifts or bequests: they were not sought after and, thus, little research has been done on them by the recipient. A museum database is by nature a work in progress, and curators are always grateful when corrections are suggested to them with the relevant documentation. Besides, many museums do not have a curator specialised in applied arts, let alone in glass. When they do, the result is markedly better as it should be.
Antiques’ dealers and auction houses
Next to the museums, antiques dealers and auction houses play a major role in setting the trend, all the more since an important part of Émile Gallé’s masterpieces and the vast majority of his company’s production lie in private collections. The financial stake they have is, of course, a strong incentive to keep the link with Émile Gallé as close as possible. It’s therefore not a surprise to find the Émile Gallé general attribution applied to his successor’s industrial series in many cases.
The Robert Zehill Gallery, in Monaco, specialises in high end, exclusive pieces from the most renowned artists. As of this writing, its inventory does feature an Egyptian revival Nilotic bowl with fishes and lotus flowers, most probably designed by Auguste Herbst, presented as by Émile Gallé, “circa 1925”– which is of course a correct date.10 Sinai and Son, in London, sold a Magnolia lamp table, MK III-signed, but from a Rouppert design ca. 1920-1923, for which it gave an attribution to Émile Gallé, circa 1905.
This is not to pick on these prestigious dealers, but to underline the common practice of using Émile Gallé’s name for all Gallé-related glass. Many others fail to provide a realistic, if approximate, manufacturing date and simply put “circa 1900” on all Gallé-signed pieces, even though they should know better (and many do). Others, like Philip Chasen Antiques, have chosen another path, referencing all Gallé glass as just that, Gallé, without any further detail.
And what about auctioneers? Christie’s chooses nowadays to label its lots either by Émile Gallé or simply Gallé, the latter applying to all post-1904 glass, but some of these later lots also appear under the Établissements Gallé name, with no apparent logic in the distinction. The switch to this double attribution is a recent one: in 2016 still, it had a 1925 Calla Lily relief vase under the Émile Gallé name, with a later correction in the sale’s notice stating that it should have been labelled “Gallé”. When a rare cameo series emerges, the auctioneer is prone to revert to the old habit of slapping a “ca. 1900” date on it, as witnessed last March by this pair of Mk VI-signed Marine landscape wall sconces, clearly made in the mid to late 1920s: the contradiction between the 1900 date and the “Gallé” label is not an issue still.
Sotheby’s, for its part, displays a near complete lack of interest for this question in most of its sales featuring Gallé glass: the auctioneer labels 1920s cameo series as made by Émile Gallé, ca. 1900, with the odd Établissements Gallé appearing from time to time. This is in fact, still in 2024, the standard practice by most international auctioneers, such as Bonham's (here with a Crab and algae late 1920s charger). Sometimes, the lot is given a correct approximate date, several decades after Émile Gallé’s death, but it is still attributed to him, such as in the next sale by New Art Est-Ouest auction in Tokyo. In this case, “Émile Gallé” stands for his company’s entire period of activity, regardless of the changes in management and practices. Old habits die hard, especially when there is no financial incentive to change them – quite the contrary. This reads like a grim survey: it’s almost as if none of the last quarter of century’s research on the subject had happened. Bright spots do exist though, the most notable of them being Quittenbaum in Munich, who has switched, in 2018, from a universal “Émile Gallé” designation to the double Émile Gallé/Établissements Gallé one, and more importantly, making a consistent effort to acknowledge recent research in the field.
The situation is quite a bit better in France and French-speaking countries – as it should be! A majority of auctioneers (Artcurial and Millon leading the way, among others) and experts now make the difference between Émile Gallé and Établissements Gallé, with often a simple Gallé as a standby for the latter. But the lack of consistency is still jarring, with auctioneers sometimes using, in the same sale, Gallé and Établissements Gallé for glass pieces from the same period, while 1920s wares are still routinely and sadly ascribed to Émile Gallé by various sellers, with no other dates than the glass master’s ones. The will to cater to some customers' ill-informed desire trumps the need to educate them in this case. And this, really, is the crux of the problem.
The pitfalls of the 1904 year-based attribution
Using Émile Gallé’s death as a basic chronological criterion is unsustainable in practice. It would mean labelling any piece made after September 1904 as coming from the Établissements Gallé and not from Émile Gallé, which simply is unconceivable. Consider the ensuing reductio ad absurdum argument: by this simplistic logic, most of the few surviving Coprins lamps, for instance, should potentially be ascribed to the Établissements Gallé because, as I have demonstrated, they could be dated as late as 1912 or 1913, even though the design itself dates from Émile Gallé’s last year or so. And the same is true for any posthumous reedition of his creations – which are very hard to spot, and for good reason, again, since the actual craftsmen were the same individuals who had made them in the first place. Do we really think that the museums are going to take this possibility in account and correct their specimen of this masterpiece’s description? Of course not, and no one will take them to task for it. For the authorship of the design remains uncontested: these lamps can be regarded as the embodiment of Émile Gallé’s creative mind, even though some were blown and etched almost a decade after his disappearance.
But then, to accept that any glass piece made from a design dated before late 1904 can be ascribed to Émile Gallé, rather than to his successors, creates a whole new set of problems. The main reason why is that his widow, Henriette Gallé, decided to keep the company running in the same way her husband did when it came to industrial series. She made a point in writing to their major clients that Émile Gallé’s death would not change anything and that his inspiration, through the designs he had directed or approved, would continue to drive the company. This was, of course, verified by the glasswork’s output in the following decades. In essence, there is very little difference, if any, between a 1914 (or even a 1925) acid-etched cameo glass piece and a 1904 one: the technique, the personnel, the designs’ principles basically were the same.
Consider, for instance, the numerous series of Glycines-themed series (Wisteria) by the Gallé glassworks, a very popular floral theme that was always in production with some variations, it seems. The picture below shows five of the main Glycines series made between circa 1902/1903 and 1912/1913. To the trained eye, the general chronological sequence leaves little doubt, even though there is few archival or pictorial pieces of evidence to determine a precise date for any of these different series: the colour combinations, some shapes (even though a large part of them remained in use throughout the company’s history, thanks to iron-cast moulds), the finishing and the general look of the glass, the acid-etching quality, which tends to improve in the 1910s-1920s, and of course, the signature types, allow a general chronological determination. So, the Glycines series would look like a good case for a universal application of the 1904 chronological criterion, with Glycines #1 to #3 labelled as “Émile Gallé” and #4 to #5 as “Établissements Gallé”.
In practice, this is not so simple, mainly because some series spanned across the 1904 divide. Consider the three-layers Green-Lavender-Rose series (#3 above), which one could call Glycines sur ciel d’aurore because they look like a “Dawn” counterpart to the “Sunset” Wisteria series advertised by the Grand Dépot store in late 1904, and whose name suggests a yellow/orange background. Most of these vases feature the expected pre-1905 signature, from various types. But some do have the asterisk-sporting Mk II type, indicating a mid to late-1905 production at the earliest. Does it make sense to label the earliest vases as coming from “Émile Gallé” and the latter ones from “Établissements Gallé”, even though absolutely nothing distinguishes them, apart from the signature, and given that some specimens were made at most a few weeks or months apart? For all we know, they could even belong to the same glass batch because the compliance to the new signature’s policy probably was not immediate nor was it completely thorough, at least at first – mistakes do happen in large-scale production.
The same dilemma applies to a dozen or more floral designs from the 1900s-1910s, like Hortensias (Hydrangea) and Érable sycomore (Ash leaf Maple), to name just two very popular contemporary series from the Glycines one, with the same range of colour combinations. In the catalogue for the 2018 exhibition on L’École de Nancy Art nouveau et industrie d’art11, Valérie Thomas presented one specimen of the original Érable vase, signed and dated (1903) with both the Gallé and the Rose Wild signatures (an exceptional, unique almost, instance)12, and three other pieces from the same series, two signed with the Mk II type (with the star, both specimens from the Düsseldorf Kunstpalast) and one with the Mk III type (from the MUDAC in Épinal). The pictures’ caption reads as “Émile Gallé, en collaboration avec Rose Wild” for the original vase, while the three other ones have the “Établissements Gallé” attribution. The comparison was intended to showcase the success of this design after Émile Gallé’s death13, and the ill-conceived adaptation of the decor to some shapes, like the two-handled round gourd, that characterised this commercial production – the idea being that Érable sycomore is a top-down (or falling) decor that demands a tall elongated shape.14
But there is ample material evidence that this kind of adaptation to a wide variety of designs antedated Émile Gallé’s death: some Érable vases feature a pre-1905 signature, sometimes confirmed by the factory’s label bearing a matching inventory number. And they include shapes that were not particularly suited for this decor, as the small vase above showcases. They were made in 1904, and, given the delay needed to stock up the inventory in time for the end-of-year sales, well before Émile Gallé’s death. That’s what the Grand Dépôt’s and other general stores’ advertisements for the New Year’s étrennes confirm: they were usually published in November or early December. So, the Érable sycomore and Glycines series marketed for the 1905 étrennes were made in the summer and fall of 1904, which means in turn that they were researched and designed well before that. By the logic of the 1904 year-based classification, they should be attributed to Émile Gallé.
One could then decide to call these as authored by “Émile Gallé”, like the Coprins, even though some of their specimens were made well after his death. But this still feels like an imperfect, arbitrary, solution: other contemporary series could have been made from designs ordered or approved by the late Émile Gallé, even though their production had not begun in his lifetime – Henriette Gallé hinted as much in her circular to the company’s clients, while there is proof that older designs were made or copied well into the 1910s and even the beginning of the 1920s. In short, the Gallé company plagiarised its successful formula. Given the lack of official catalogues and the very dim prospect there is of ever achieving a general catalogue raisonné of Gallé glasswares, it seems both unreasonable and impractical to stick too rigidly to a labelling difference between Émile Gallé and Établissements Gallé for industrial series dating from the 1890s to the late 1910s.
Under the veneer of historical accuracy, this is a recipe for spreading chronological and attribution mistakes. The signature’s type is quite often one of the strongest clues to differentiate some cameo series and to assign them before or after 1904. But it remains an imperfect tool, all the more since almost all post-1904 signature types are modelled after some late 1890s or early 1900s precursors, with which they can be easily confused – the Mk V and Mk VI signatures being the most notable exceptions. Philippe Olland’s Dictionary exemplifies this kind of mistake with its attribution to the 1900-1904 period of a Mk VIII-signed Glaïeuls gourd-shaped vase (pictured below), which was, in fact, introduced in 1924 (as I have demonstrated here). Likewise, it’s frequent to see Mk IV-signed enamelled vases from the Rouppert period (1920-1924) attributed by dealers, auctioneers, and yes, even museum curators, to the late 1880s or early 1890s.
I would also argue that the Émile Gallé/Établissements Gallé dichotomy does make invisible the designers working under Émile Gallé, who were real artists in their own right. This is why a more flexible typology could and, perhaps, should, be envisioned, to allow for the many uncertainties in date as well as in authorship surrounding the factory’s products between the early 1900s and the mid-1910s.
The gist of this proposal is to separate Émile Gallé, the artist/designer, from Émile Gallé the entrepreneur, when it comes to the attribution of the glass pieces, and thus to better acknowledge the contribution of his designers’ team. It serves also to recognise that the turn to industrial cameo acid-etched series was a gradual one: it certainly did not begin overnight after Émile Gallé’s death. There were cost-effective mass-produced series already in his time, and it’s very doubtful that, during his later years, he was able to vet them all, let alone to design them – the Erable sycomore series stands as the proof of that. In other words, the real divide is not a chronological one (before/after September 1904), but a qualitative one, between (quasi) unique or high-end artworks and industrial series.
A proposal for a slightly different nomenclature
In this spirit, a fair, historically accurate, distinction of design attribution, putting the emphasis on authorship, could be the following, in my view:
– Émile Gallé (1846-1904) for all artwork and high-end (“Grand genre”) glass pieces made until September 1904, or reedited after this date, i.e., the creations he actually had a personal role in designing or directing. The attribution must also be extended to industrial series for which there is documentary evidence about Émile Gallé’s creative involvement, like the 1904 Cylène one – a highly unusual design coming from Émile Gallé’s botanical observations.
– Atelier d’Émile Gallé for all industrial series from 1878 to 1919,15 i.e., commercial glass he merely approved, at best,16 until his death, but which were (mainly) designed by Hestaux and Nicolas, who then went on with their work until their respective death and departure from the company. This attribution acknowledges the continuity of design and technique when it comes to industrial series. It’s a clean solution to the dilemma that’s been underlined above, namely the difficulty there is to accurately date and assign authorship to some glass from the 1900s and early 1910s. And above all, it recognises the prominent role of the team Émile Gallé assembled in the making of these industrial series. This designation can be complemented by the mention of the artist, in the rather rare instances his or her identity is established, as it is for the Érable sycomore – Atelier d’Émile Gallé (Rose Wild), 1903 – or the black Jeanne d’Arc – Atelier d’Émile Gallé (Louis Hestaux), 1909.
– Établissements Gallé for all series from 1920 to 1936. With Hestaux and Nicolas gone, even though Auguste Herbst, a prominent member of Émile Gallé’s original team, remained involved as chief designer for this period, the company loosened its relationship with its founder, dropping his first name from its masthead. “Gallé” became a generic trademark signalling an art glass style rather than the revered intellectual heritage of a great artist. Most of the designers from this last era of the company never met Émile Gallé, and their creations began incorporating new stylistic trends far from Émile Gallé’s brand of Art Nouveau. Like the Atelier d’Émile Gallé attribution, this should be complemented by the designer’s name, when available: for instance, Glaïeuls by the Établissements Gallé (Jean Rouppert), 1924, or Mouettes, by the Établissements Gallé (Auguste Herbst), 1927.
As for the maker attribution – which should differ from the design authorship – a fully accurate scheme would follow the history of the company’s corporate identity, as it is documented on official paperwork (see the picture above). That would mean Émile Gallé from 1878 to 1890, then Cristallerie d’Émile Gallé from 1891 to 1906, Établissements Émile Gallé from 1907 to 1925, and finally, Établissements Gallé SA (for Société Anonyme) from 1925 to 1936. However, given the difficulty there would be to follow this chronology, it’s both acceptable and easier to adopt Maison Gallé, for the whole period. A full attribution system, with both maker and designer information, complete with the reasonable alternatives, would be the following table.
Having a double chronology, for the manufacturer and the designer, overcomplicates the matter. While it is historically accurate, the first one is of little practical consequence, all the more since it does not reflect the underlying most important change over the period, when manufacturing is concerned, that is the opening of a full glassmaking operation in Nancy in 1894, and the end of Émile Gallé’s partnership with the Burgun, Schverer & Cie glassworks in Meisenthal: as Le Tacon has shown, Émile Gallé had already claimed being a Cristallerie by 1891.17 To make the attribution process more manageable, it’s probably better to simplify this part and to recognise that Maison Gallé (with or without the dates, including or not Charles Gallé’s time) is enough. Then, the decision-making tree for attribution looks like this:
Coming back to the various Glycines series, this is how this attribution scheme would apply.
And what about “Gallé”?
As an acceptable, if less accurate, substitute both of Atelier d’Émile Gallé and Établissements Gallé, one could simply stick with the name only, Gallé, to characterise the industrial series from 1878 to 1936 — so, formally, a substantial modification of Le Tacon’s original 1993 recommendation, since 1904 should not be considered a cut-off year anymore.
Retailers from the 1910s to the 1930s were commonly referring to “Cristaux de Gallé” in their catalogues and advertisements, never using the “Établissements Gallé” designation. Gallé was, in fact, already regarded as a commercial trademark in Émile Gallé’s living time. The prestigious A la Paix specialised store, in Paris, whose owner Geo Rouard had obtained the exclusive sales of some of Émile Gallé’s artworks, was advertising as early as 1902 (at least) the generic Cristaux et Meubles de Gallé. Beginning in 1904/1905, the shorthand Gallé was the norm in this marketing material. It went much farther after WW1, when the Gallé name became quasi synonymous with art glass, judging from some special tariff and trade regulations – but that deserves a study of its own.
To summarise, if the distinction between Émile Gallé and the Établissements Gallé was a useful one when it was put forward in the 1990s, to help spread groundbreaking research on the chronology of the Gallé company and its products, it is now overdue for an upgrade. Three decades of additional research have allowed some artistic collaborators to emerge further from the shadow of the great master, while underlining the grey areas remaining in our knowledge and the simplistic logic of a straight 1904 divide. The alternative submitted above is meant to foster discussion on the matter. I will be using it myself going forward in my studies, but I do not harbour any illusion as to its eventual adoption among the various interested parties, given how many actors in the field still use the generic Émile Gallé (1846-1904) attribution to all Gallé glass.
I would finally add that when it comes to the other product line of the Gallé company, the cabinet furniture, the situation is so much worse and that real research work remains to be done there.
© Samuel Provost, 22 August 2024.
Footnotes
Bloch-Dermant 1986, p. 198-200 ; Olland 2023 (2), p. 199.
For instance, some 1920’s enamelled pieces, or some Egyptian Revival ones: Garner 1977 (French edition), p. 18 and 97.
Tim Newark’s The Art of Emile Gallé (1989) featuring on his cover the Elephants vase from 1925 (whose date he acknowledges), and, inside, many pictures of industrial series from the same period with a “c. 1900” date surely qualifies as such.
Le Tacon 1993, p. 215-216.
Bloch-Dermant 1986, part. p. 38-40.
Olland 2023 (2), p. 360.
Emile Gallé et le verre. La collection du Musée de l’École de Nancy, Somogy, 2004-2014, cat. 320-363.
For instance, in L’École de Nancy face aux questions politiques et sociales de son temps, Somogy, MEN, 2015, cat. 49 and 51, for the black Joan of Arc series and related pieces, which I helped correcting the date to 1908-1909.
Le Tacon 1998, p. 194-197.
On this production, see Provost 2016, “Les sources des décors égyptisants sur les verreries et marqueteries des Établissements Gallé”, Arts nouveaux, 32, p. 30‑37 [open access link].
L’École de Nancy, Art Nouveau et industrie d’art, 2018, p. 103.
The double-signed specimen came to the Musée de l’École de Nancy from the personal collection of Rose Wild in 1990: it looks therefore likely that it was a unique copy, specially engraved with her name and the date of the design’s creation, as an acknowledgement of her authorship. But the commercially available copies were not featuring this double signature.
Valérie Thomas mentions, without publishing it, an advertisement from the Grand Dépôt showing this series for the 1905 étrennes, with two shapes identical to the ones in the 2018 exhibition. I am unaware of this advertisement and I wonder if there is not a confusion here with the Glycines advertisement presented above, which was published for the same sales season, with the referenced shapes. It may be that the Grand Dépôt published two different advertisements for these two series. But, in any case, this just shows that even sophisticated naturalistic shapes were not exclusive to one decor. The shape of the Rose Wild vase was used, from the start, with different floral patterns, among which the Erable sycomore and the Glycines.
This series had already been chosen as a case study in the 2004 joint-exhibition between the Musée de l’École de Nancy and the Neumann foundation: V. Thomas, “Une série ordinaire. Un thème décoratif unique, décliné dans des formes diverses”, in Thomas, Thomson and Thiébaut 2004, p. 101-103.
Louis Hestaux is hired in 1878 as the chief of the design workshop: Émile Gallé has then from this date a reliable collaborator to execute his vision.
As I have discussed previously, it’s highly dubious that Émile Gallé supervised all the glass coming from the factory in his late years, given that he was either away from Nancy on medical leave and/or too ill to work but a few hours a day. His design team managed without him, under the supervision of the factory’s manager, Émile Lang, with the help of Henriette Gallé.
Le Tacon 1998, p. 190.
Bibliography
Le Tacon F. 1993, “Les techniques et les marques sur verre des Établissements Gallé après 1918”, Le Pays Lorrain, 74, 4, p. 203‑218 [available online].
Le Tacon F. 1998, L’œuvre de verre d’Émile Gallé, Paris, Éd. Messène.
Musée de l’École de Nancy 2014 (2): Musée de l’École de Nancy Émile Gallé et le verre: la collection du Musée de l’École de Nancy, Paris, Somogy éditions d’art, 2014, 2nd edition.
Olland Ph. 2023 (2), Dictionnaire des maîtres verriers : marques et signatures : de l’Art nouveau à l’Art déco, Dijon, Éditions Faton, 2nd edition.
Thomas, Thomson and Thiébaut 2004: Valérie Thomas, Helen Bierie Thomson and Philippe Thiébaut, Verreries d’Émile Gallé : de l’œuvre unique à la série, Paris, Nancy, Gingins, Somogy éditions d’art, 2004.
How to cite this article : Samuel Provost, “Émile Gallé, Gallé or Établissements Gallé, what’s in a name?”, Newsletter on Art Nouveau Craftwork & Industry, no 28, 22 August 2024 [link].