Daum brothers' factory, Nancy
Jean Daum (1825–1885) purchased the Sainte-Catherine Glassworks in the city of Nancy in 1878, renaming the business Verrerie de Nancy. The following year, his eldest son Jean Louis August Daum (1853–1909) entered the company. After his father’s death in 1885, August took over the running of the works. His younger brother Jean-Antonin Daum (1864–1930) joined in the creative and artistic side of the work in 1887. Another artist working in Nancy, Émile Gallé, enjoyed enormous success at the 1889 Paris World’s Fair with his artistic glassware, which spurred the Daum brothers – who had hitherto made mainly functional glassware and household items – to produce more artistic work. They set up a separate decorative workshop to produce refined pieces demanding complex production technology and sought to attain high artistic standards by employing talented artists (Eugène Gall, Brutus Dammann, Victor Marchand, Sévère Winckler and Jacques Gruber).
Among the Daum Brothers’ products was cameo glass, made by etching layers of glass of different colours with hydrofluoric acid. The reflect the influence of Émile Gallé in the technology of their manufacture and the floral motifs from the Art Nouveau repertoire of ornament.
The Daum company had its first international success at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, and its achievements were honoured with the Grand Prix at the 1900 Paris World’s Fair. The furniture designer Louis Majorelle, upon returning to the city of Nancy after his father’s death, worked with the company to produce metal-based table lamps in the form of graceful flower cups and decorative metal settings for Daum’s remarkable ornamental glassware.
One group of Daum products is distinguished by the use of enamel paint on the surface, or between layers of glass, to make highly detailed scenes in naturalistic colours, surrounding the glass body with panoramic landscapes of lakesides or green or snowy forests.
Victor Amalric Walter, who was hired by the Daum Brothers in 1904, launched the production of decorative objects made with the pâte-de-verre technique, which involves melting powdered crushed glass into a mould to produce a modelled ornament. Henri Bergé was the designer responsible for these works.
The Champignon lamps appeared in 1910. The decoration of the shade and the base made up a complementary scheme, with floral motifs arranged across the surface or landscape scenes conforming to the shape. The chiaroscuro of light and dark is a prominent feature of these lamps, where the illuminated background of the setting sun emerges behind the dark silhouette of the twilight landscape. (See inv. no. 55.605.1-2.)
The Daum brothers were active members of the artistic group École de Nancy, launched by Émil Gallé in 1901. Its members shared the aim of extending the Art Nouveau aesthetic to branches of the applied arts at a high standard.
by Ildikó Kálosi
