Daum Vase-Piece of the Week

DAUM.

Founded by The Brothers Auguste and Antonin in the town of Nancy in the French region of Alsace-Lorraine.
They would create glassware of exceptional quality with varying techniques of finest workmanship that would, at times, rival the work of Galle.

The first Department of Art was created within the small family glassworks which would interpret the spirit of Art Nouveau.
They moved with the times through the Twenties and Thirties an evolution into a Art Deco style.


They would welcome in a new era in the 1950's and still make glasswares today.

100 years ago it was not just the case of expressing a new artform but aquiring the techniques to express it in glass. To imbue a feeling or a sincerity, the Daum Brothers wanted to make work that would outshine its rivals.

Works that would create an arousal, not only in the style but an understanding of the complexity of the piece, heightening the sense of achievement of the craftsman and designers collaboration.

Shape, Decoration, Colour and Material would be the four elements that would contribute to the organic processs that would be the hallmark of Art Nouveau.

Spirits of Autumn Summer and Winter would all be brought into play with hues and glows that conjure up a feeling inside each work of art.

It is as if they have been found on the floor of the forest rather than in a glasswork factory.

Its not as if you can go and get a recipe book. The artistic glassmaker would have to carry out his own experiments and write down the formula.

Lets as example think how would you obtain the exact colour, in glass for, lets say and Orchid or a Thistle head of a Cow Parsley.
 Or crisping leaves in autumnal differing grades of decay, of red and gold.

A few companies such as Appert of St Denis would supply Antonin Daum with some of his early supplies.

Often glassworkers would move companies or transfer to a different area and it was important to train the skilled workers of the future.

In 1925 Paul Daum refined and transformed the pallete.

Michel Daum would start working in lead crystal. After the Second World War the company would largely abandon glass in favour of lead crystal.

Between 1891 and 1914 3,000 different models appeared.

1920 to 1939 saw 2,000.

They won medals and honours, first prizes galore taking the official exhibitions extremely seriously in helping stimulate revenue through sales. Chicago 1893. Nancy and Lyon 1894. Brussels 1895 and 1897. There was a Legion of Honour for Auguste. In 1900 at the World Fair, like Galle, Daum were awarded a First Prize and Antonin a Legion D'Hounour.

Exhibitions at Ecole de Nancy the Pavillion de Marsan 1903 and Nancy itself in 1905 and 1908. Strasboug 1908 Paris and Brussels 1910. Then Gand 1913 and Lyon 1914. It just went on, and on. After the Great War they would show their style at the Paris Expostion des Art Decorative Et Industrial Moderne in 1925 moving into a more geometric and angular vision that would lend itseld to acid etching pattern.

This petite slimly bulbous vase is only 20cm high and is a yellowish base or pallette where the green hues of leaves blowing in the wind have been overlaid and carved back by wheel cutting. Several different colours of glass tinted by oxides can be seen to be applied to make up the overall effect. It is a painting in molton glass.

The base clearly displays the Daum Nancy mark and proudly proclaims the Cross of Lorraine as a symbol of defiance.

Alsace Lorraaine was lost to the Germans in 1870.during The Franco Prussian War.

Napoleon III had won Nice and Savoy in 1861 from Turin. It had been Italian.

Famous for Quiche Lorrane Alsation dogs, it was named Elsass Lothringen by the Germans. Many Road names are today still in German. There is a marker or two to the Magino line.

Bismark took it in 1871 This was one of the underlying causes of the First World War.

The first world war one charge was an attempt to take it back which they didn’t do till 1918.Germany took it again in 1940 The Germans re-uniting with the motherland of the German Reich. The French re occupation happened in 1944.