Établissements Gallé Enameled Glass "Dragon" Vase
Regular price
$85,000
This monumental enameled glass vase by Jean Rouppert for Établissements Gallé. Designed in 1919, the vase depicts a three-toed dragon in tones of teal, black, white, and yellow, captured in mid-flight. The design draws upon a Renaissance prototype popularized by Paolo Uccello, characterized by concentric circular scales derived from heraldic stylization and recalling the osteoderms of a crocodile’s back.
The dragon is enlivened with incisive details—molar-like teeth, a forked tongue, gill-like facial appendages, and banded horns—while thin applications of white enamel create the illusion of translucent wings. A brunaille rendering of the body against the ground enhances depth and modeling, lending the creature a sculptural presence.
The background, conceived in a palette evocative of ink on raw silk, pays homage to the Japanese kakemono (hanging scroll), whose compositional restraint and tonal subtlety profoundly influenced Galle’s designers. The vase’s body shifts from transparency at the upper register to increasing opacity toward the base, forming a horizontal gradient that suggests sky, horizon, and earth. A lower border of teal anthemia imparts a classical accent, while an applied ring foot provides an architectural conclusion to the form.
Item #: YG-22126
Artist: Émile Gallé
Country: France
Circa: 1919
Dimensions: 30" height, 8" diameter.
Materials: Enameled Glass
Signed: Gallé
Literature: Garner, Philippe. 1976. Emile Gallé London, New York: Academy Editions ; St. Martin’s Press. p.19
Samuel Provost, « Quelle direction artistique pour les Établissements Gallé après 1914 : Les relations de Paul Perdrizet avec les artistes Gallé », in Aziza Gril-Mariotte (éd.), L’artiste et l’objet. La création dans les arts décoratifs (XVIIIe-XXe siècle), Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2018, 213‑223, pl. XXV‑XXVIII, part. p. 217 and ill. 1
Item #: YG-22126
Artist: Émile Gallé
Country: France
Circa: 1919
Dimensions: 30" height, 8" diameter.
Materials: Enameled Glass
Signed: Gallé
Literature: Garner, Philippe. 1976. Emile Gallé London, New York: Academy Editions ; St. Martin’s Press. p.19
Samuel Provost, « Quelle direction artistique pour les Établissements Gallé après 1914 : Les relations de Paul Perdrizet avec les artistes Gallé », in Aziza Gril-Mariotte (éd.), L’artiste et l’objet. La création dans les arts décoratifs (XVIIIe-XXe siècle), Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2018, 213‑223, pl. XXV‑XXVIII, part. p. 217 and ill. 1
After the initial wave of Japonisme in Gallé’s early production, a second revival emerged after 1912 under the direction of Paul Perdrizet, Émile Gallé’s son-in-law and a professor of archaeology at the University of Nancy. Perdrizet’s engagement with Japanese art was informed in part by books given to him by René-Jean, librarian of the art and archaeology library founded by Jacques Doucet. In this later phase, Rouppert’s dragon designs became more restrained in palette and more graphic in character than those of earlier decades.
After the initial wave of Japonisme in Gallé’s early production, a second revival emerged after 1912 under the direction of Paul Perdrizet, Émile Gallé’s son-in-law and a professor of archaeology at the University of Nancy. Perdrizet’s engagement with Japanese art was informed in part by books given to him by René-Jean, librarian of the art and archaeology library founded by Jacques Doucet. In this later phase, Rouppert’s dragon designs became more restrained in palette and more graphic in character than those of earlier decades.
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