Collecting Art Nouveau design

At its height, from 1890 to 1910, Art Nouveau swept through the world with its sinuous curves, exotic ornamentation and stylised floral and foliate forms. Influenced by the rise of Japonisme and England’s Arts and Crafts movement in the 19th century, Art Nouveau was marked by experimentation with materials, which allowed the beauty of the natural world to be conveyed in highly individualistic ways.

Many of the movement’s leading figures immersed themselves in nature or travelled abroad to gain inspiration from unfamiliar plants, animals and insects. The brilliance of Art Nouveau lies in the artists’ ability to render the organic delicacy of natural forms in rigid materials.

‘This was a pivotal moment for glassmaking — and woodcarving and marquetry were also extremely important,’ says Victoria Tudor, a specialist in the Design department at Christie’s in New York, who notes that fruitwoods, mahogany and satinwood were frequently employed.

‘Whether making a wooden side table or a lamp’s metal mount, Art Nouveau designers found different ways to manipulate structured materials to emulate movement in nature. Their forms are what you’d expect to see in the stem of a flower or leaf.’

The specialist continues: ‘The true genius of Tiffany, Gallé and Daum is that each knew how to work with the materials they had. Art Nouveau is about finding inspiration and discovering how to recreate it through your own vision. It’s a kind of poetry where a theme or emotion is conveyed in glass, wood or metal rather than words.’

Below, discover what distinguishes the key figures of this period and how their subject matter and technical innovations inspired generations of artists.

Daum

Jeam Daum, a lawyer, founded his company in 1878, when he bought a failing glass factory in Nancy and employed his son Auguste to run it. Initially, they produced tableware in clear or translucent glass. However, a new era dawned in 1887, when Auguste’s brother, Antonin, joined the business and set up a creative department to produce floral designs in coloured and cameo glass.

In 1894, the painter Henri Bergé was hired as a designer. His naturalistic designs, inspired by Art Nouveau, included botanical drawings and landscapes, and infused a new artistic life into Daum. The range of designs significantly increased, as did the volume of items produced.

In 1899, Daum began to make lamps. A significant collaboration had begun earlier in the 1890s with Louis Majorelle, a family friend, who helped form the Ecole de Nancy with both Daum and Gallé. In December 2021 at Christie’s in New York, one such collaborative piece between Daum and Majorelle — a rare ‘Nénuphar’ table lamp — sold for $200,000, which was 10 times its low estimate.

Emile Gallé

Born in Nancy, France — a centre of glassmaking — and a founder of the Ecole de Nancy, Emile Gallé produced works prized for their beautiful forms, rich colour palettes and inspired decoration, often featuring natural, botanical and insect motifs. The experimental techniques Gallé pioneered, such as glass marquetry and acid etching, enabled his company to create some of the most refined glassware on the market. His studio’s designs frequently used layers of glass, or inclusions such as gold leaf, to add to their complexity.

Another unique part of Gallé’s output, which also included ceramics and furnishings, was his verreries parlantes (‘speaking glassware’). These designs incorporated a literary or poetic quotation, typically wheel-engraved and placed in such a way that the object had to be handled by the viewer in order to read it.

René Lalique

In the realm of Art Nouveau jewellery and decorative objects, the name of René Lalique reigned supreme. After gaining widespread acclaim for his artistic modern jewels, Lalique began experimenting with glass around 1890. In 1905, he opened a new shop at Place Vendôme, where glass objects made at his estate in Clairefontaine, near Rambouillet, would be displayed alongside his jewellery.

After revolutionising the perfume industry with his glass bottles, Lalique devoted himself exclusively to glassmaking in the 1920s and developed a signature technique of using clear and frosted glass to create contrast. Over the years, Lalique crafted countless vases, ranging from the ‘Poissons’ to the ‘Bacchantes’, and many other objects that were mass-produced in different treatments and colours of glass. The artist embraced subsequent styles, including Art Deco and modernism, and the business he founded still thrives today.

Louis Majorelle

Although Louis Majorelle also worked with metal, it is his woodwork that is synonymous with Art Nouveau. Working in the French tradition of the ébéniste, or cabinetmaker, the designer ran a substantial atelier whose production ranged from standardised designs for a broad market to sumptuous works that fulfilled the most exclusive of commissions, such as the ‘Lit aux Nénuphars’.

Working with a palette of woods from various parts of the globe, Majorelle often created tonal designs and gradients, as well as floral marquetry that was akin to fine art. He went on to become a vice president of the Ecole de Nancy and had multiple shops in France.

Tiffany Studios

After a successful career as a painter and interior decorator, Louis Comfort Tiffany decided to focus on the design and production of stained glass, which resulted in his iconic leaded glass lamps. Working with some of America’s finest artisans, Tiffany Studios produced decorative pieces from its factory in Queens, New York, for almost 40 years, giving rise to several patented processes, such as that for iridescent Favrile glass.

The designer gleaned much inspiration from Laurelton Hall, his scenic country estate in Oyster Bay, which was built between 1902 and 1905. Tiffany ensured that every inch of the property, from its fountains and flowers to the peacocks that roamed the grounds, would reflect his vision. The estate also hosted a summer residency for artists, who would in turn be inspired by its interior and exterior wonders. A fire devastated Laurelton Hall in 1957, but its legacy endures — not least through Tiffany Studios’ vibrant lamps, with their depictions of wisteria, laburnum and dragonflies.

Alongside its lamps, Tiffany Studios produced countless other creations in glass, ceramics, enamel and metalwork, from windows and vases to candlesticks, picture frames, magnifying glasses and card boxes. These objects, which conjure the majesty of the designer’s grander works on an intimate scale, continue to be treasured by collectors today.

Tiffany Studios produced a wide variety of desk sets, among the most iconic of which is the etched metal and glass ‘Grapevine’ style, designed around 1900 and produced until the 1920s. These sets come in different configurations, as they could be customised to meet the user’s needs.

Art Nouveau’s international impact

Art Nouveau spawned many variations, such as Italian designer Carlo Bugatti’s highly architectural furniture, as well as localised movements, including the Vienna Secession, whose key figures range from Gustav Klimt to Otto Wagner. Simply visiting Austria’s capital, or other European cities — such as Barcelona, where Antoni Gaudí’s creativity is on full display, or Paris, where classic Métro station entrances are among the many contributions of designer Hector Guimard — gives a sense of how ambitious Art Nouveau creators were.

The fact that many Art Nouveau designers experimented with buildings as well as individual objects makes perfect sense, says Tudor says: ‘Especially for cabinetmaking, it’s really important to have an understanding of architecture as well as furniture. They inform each other.’