Albert Cheuret "Aloès" Lamp
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Albert Cheuret’s "Aloès" lamp is composed of a calyx of bronze aloe leaves and petals of fine alabaster. Flora and fauna Cheuret encountered in Algeria would deeply inform his choice of subjects. Gardens, fields, and houses near the Atlas Mountains were fenced with cactus and aloe. Spaniards brought the aloe from South America, planting them along the shores of Algeria. The aloe was meant to ward off the approaches of wild beasts, which devastated the then flourishing agricultural establishments.
The overarching form of the lamp was inspired by the Egyptian lotus, a flower used traditionally on the capitals of Egyptian Columns. The lotus is significant in Egyptian mythology for the birth of the sun god, who emerged from the flower after it had risen out of the flood of the primeval waters of Nun. An alabaster Lotus cup was found in the tomb of King Tut, the archaeological discovery that sparked the second wave of Egyptomania.
- Product Details
- Curator's Notes
Item #: EL-20675
Artist: Albert Cheuret
Country: France
Circa: 1925
Dimensions: 30.375" high x 18" wide x 18" deep
Materials: Patinated Bronze, Alabaster
Signed: impressed Albert Cheuret
Literature: Pierre Kjellberg, Art Déco Les maîtres du mobilier - Le décor des paquebots, Paris, 1986, front cover, "Félix Marcilhac, Connoisseur's Choice," The Staste, Tokyo, no. 1, September-October 1990, p. 71, Jérôme Coignard, "Chez Pierre Bergé et Yves Saint Laurent," Connaissance des Arts, January 2006, p. 49, Alastair Duncan, Art Deco Complete, New York, 2009, p. 239 (for the "Aloe" chandelier)
Aloe was a popular treatment for burns and wounds and was a central herb for the seventeenth-century French apothecary. The therapeutic properties of common aloe were recorded as early as 1500 B.C. in the Ebers papyrus, an Egyptian medical manuscript. The leaves of the genus Aloe contain a juice and a gel that can be used as moisturizers, laxatives, and antiseptics.