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Gabriel Argy-Rousseau Pâte de Verre "Anémones des bois" Night Light
SOLD
$22,500
Argy-Rousseau's near-unique ability to gracefully soften the starkness of Art Deco design without ever sacrificing the strength of the design is on full display in this remarkable, petite masterpiece. His “Anémones des bois” design combines the indigo petals and serrated leaves of a wood anemone. Photos taken by Argy Rousseau using his revolutionary color photography technique demonstrate that the artist’s inspiration for the use of anemones in his design was drawn from the lush gardens of Sevres. During his four-year tenure at the Ecole Nationale de Ceramique de Sevres, the gardens were adorned with a charming array or white, blue, purple, and red anemones. The shade is supported by a three-arm spider perched on a circular cast iron base with six curved legs adorned with notches, while the base itself is embellished with concentric notched rings that echo the design of the legs.
- Product Details
- Curator's Notes
Item #: YEL-21237
Artist: Gabriel Argy-Rousseau
Country: France
Circa: 1920
Dimensions: 14" height, 4.25" diameter.
Materials: Pâte de verre, translucent glass, Wrought Iron
Signed: G. Argy-Rousseau
Literature: Bloch-Dermant Janine Gabriel Argy-Rousseau and Yves Delaborde. 1991. G. Argy-Rousseau : Glassware As Art : With a Catalogue Raisonné of the Pâtes De Verre. London: Thames and Hudson. p.184
Gabriel Rousseau adopted the suffix 'Argy' in honor of his wife Marianne Argyriadès. She was his best friend's sister. They all shared a love of Greco-Roman and Egyptian antiquity. Argy-Rousseau was interested in many things, studied at the École de Sèvres, but also completed an engineering degree. Throughout his life, he conducted research in areas as diverse as dental porcelain and color photography. In his private life he always surrounded himself with creative personalities, including Henri Cros, who had long been known for his glass works using the 'pâte-de-verre' technique. Argy-Rousseau began to work successfully with the material even before the First World War, after the war he founded a glass factory that had 20 employees at its peak. He developed his own technique for producing his ideas: Argy-Rousseau first modeled his sketched idea in plaster, which was then covered with wax. A refractory hollow mold consisting of several parts was then molded from this model in several work steps. He even produced his own glass. It was crushed into powder and colored by the addition of metal oxides. With the help of fine brushes, the now liquid glass mass, which had been washed several times, was applied precisely to the walls of the refractory mould. Two more layers followed, one after the other, to create strength and at the same time prevent air bubbles from forming. The last layer was resin to further fix the pate de verre. The model was then placed upside down in a wood-fired oven, where the piece was then fired at high temperatures. After cooling, the mold was removed, the now solid object cleaned with acid and the last bumps polished off with a wheel. This is how these wonderful, transparent, at the same time colorful, delicate-looking objects came into being.