A spiral staircase of amber-colored glass leads us down to the Fin de siècle and the late 19th-century currents of thought, where industrially produced glass of somnambulistically stiff character almost overnight gave way to organic forms and sinuous ornamentation held in a muted color bath that transitioned from yellow to orange, further to red, toward a brown tone that suddenly veered toward purple, then blued, and ended in green.
It's time for Art Glass - Art Nouveau 2, and once again, a delight of colors and forms awaits us. An exclamation point in the collection is Emile Gallé's vase in glazed earthenware from the 1870s - a piece that, in hindsight, foreshadowed what was to come. Another is his glass vase in blue, pink, and green with blooming branches reminiscent of Japanese cherry trees. It carries a lightness in expression that is relatively unusual within French turn-of-the-century glass. However, these are just two examples from a catalog that includes a total of 48 lots.
