Daum table lamp. Nancy, ca. 1910

DAUM table lamp. Nancy, ca. 1910.
Cameo and wheel-cut glass.
Signed.
Measurements: 46 x 18 x 18 cm.

Table lamp entirely made of cameo glass. Thorny branches and leaves in shades of ochre and green are carved in bas-relief on an ivory-colored background. Precise carvings define the ribs. The ornamental motifs of the foot, worked in different layers, harmonize with those of the hemicycle-shaped lampshade. The cameo glass technique consists of blowing a bubble of two or more layers of glass of different colors, which are then cut or removed by acid etching the bottom, thus leaving the motif in relief, in the color of the top layer of glass.

The Daum manufacture was founded in the late nineteenth 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. Eventually, Daum will have a factory with more than three hundred employees and an artistic production of great variety. 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.