POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Hanging light bowl by René Lalique

Object No. A7770

This hanging light bowl of opaline and frosted glass was designed in the late 1930's by René Jules Lalique (1860-1945), a highly creative French artist, industrialist and influential designer of Art Deco glass. After a successful career as an innovative Art Nouveau jeweller who incorporated glass into many of his creations, Lalique decided to make modern decorative glass. He rented a glasshouse in the Paris suburb of Combs-la-Ville in 1909 and two years later, set up his own factory in the Alsatian town of Wingen-sur-Moder, in eastern France. At René Lalique et Cie, he designed and supervised production of a stunning range of objects of great originality ranging from perfume bottles to clocks, light-fixtures, car mascots, statuettes and furniture panels. Between 1909 and 1942, Lalique designed over 450 different styles of vases.* Lalique designs often drew on nature and thislight bowl draws on the human female form. This design and a dazzling array of other fashionable decorative glassware were used in homes across Europe and beyond, thus fulfilling René Lalique's dream of making well designed and affordable glass objects available to everyone. Among Lalique's best known commissions are the walls of lighted glass and coloured glass columns for the first-class dining room and salon of the ocean liner SS Normandie. His illuminated glass fountain Les Sources de France (Springs of France) dazzled international visitors to the 1925 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris; this museum has one of the Madonna sculptures designed for the fountain in its collection. Lalique used three glassmaking techniques: mould-blowing, mould-pressing and blowing into a cire perdue (lost wax) mould. The complex cire perdue technique was used to make larger vases and sculptures. The majority of his glass objects have a distinctive frosted (acid etched) surface finish. Whether making unique or production pieces, the firm René Lalique et Cie was renowned for its excellent quality and high artistic standards. *Elliott K., René Lalique. The Corning Museum of Glass https://www.cmog.org/article/lalique accessed 6/11/2017 Eva Czernis-Ryl, Curator, 2017