Daum & Majorelle Vase

DAUM & LOUIS MAJORELLE vase. France, ca. 1930.
Glass and wrought iron.
Signed.
Measurements: 37.5 x 24 x 24 cm.

Vase in blown glass Daum, Nancy, mounted on superimposed iron structure by Louis Majorelle. Both firms collaborated extensively in response to the Gesamtkunstwerk movement (which sought the total work of art), where all the arts would work in harmony. In fact, Majorelle often incorporated glass elements into his furniture, and for this he turned to Daum for the creation of lampshades, glass panels for display cases or doors, and other illuminated decorative elements.

The Daum manufacture was founded at the end of the 19th century by Augustin Daum (1853-1909), from a small family glassworks in Nancy. He would be joined by his brother Antonin (1864-1931), and Daum's workshops would soon after become a meeting and training place for many young artists, who promoted the Art Nouveau style in Nancy. At first they made ordinary glass, but in 1891 they decided to open a decorative workshop and undertake artistic production, probably as a result of the success of Émile Gallé (1846-1904) at the 1889 Exhibition. During World War I, the factory closed, but resumed production after the war, adapting to the change of aesthetics and leaving behind the modernism of its first period. During the Art Nouveau period, most of Daum's pieces were made of acid-etched cameo glass, but with the new Art Deco style, new techniques and decorative styles were investigated.

Cabinetmaker and designer member of the School of Nancy, of which he was even vice president, Louis Majorelle was the son of a designer and furniture manufacturer installed in the town of Toul, from which he moved to Nancy with his family. There Majorelle made his first artistic training, then went to Paris in 1877, where he studied for two years at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, where he was taught by Jean-François Millet. However, the death of his father forced him to return to Nancy to run the family china and furniture factory, a task that he would combine with his artistic practice for the rest of his life. In the eighties and until the early nineties, Majorelle manufactured Louis XV style furniture in the family firm, which he took in 1894 to the Exhibition of Decorative and Industrial Arts in Nancy. There, however, he was able to learn first-hand about the pieces of Émile Gallé, whose influence would determine a radical turn in Majorelle's production. From then on, his work would be characterized by the use of naturalistic elements in his forms and marquetry. From the nineties on, his furniture will be fully framed in the Art Nouveau language, with intertwined forms and a clear direct inspiration in nature, with motifs such as vegetables, water lilies, the typical thistle of Nancy or the dragonfly, an icon of French modernism. In 1900 he went a step further and created a forge workshop in his factory, in order to be able to make iron fittings in accordance with his designs. Over time, this became more important, and he was responsible for the handrails of the staircases and the exterior details of numerous buildings in Nancy.