'Épines formant quatre pieds', a rare cire perdue vase, no. CP 377, designed 1921

Employed on vases, scent bottles, a mirror and a box, thorns were a favoured yet uncommon motif theme in Lalique’s oeuvre. The present lot, however, is unique amongst Lalique’s important cire perdue series to feature this ornament. Here Lalique has taken sharp spines and prickles and retained their sense of their cruelty by modelling them in high relief but simultaneously transformed them into a work of extreme beauty. The quatrefoil sectional arrangement of the briars is reminiscent of Gothic cathedral arches and tracery. Within the curving forms Lalique seems to emphasise the void and in so doing causes space to almost become both tangible and tactile.