Lot Essay
cf. Frederick R. Brandt, Late 19th and Early 20th Century Decorative Arts, The Sydney and Frances Lewis Collection in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 1985, p. 66, cat. no. 13 for an illustration of another example of this model, dated 1899, in the Museum's collection.
Like Franois-Raoul Larche, Gustave Gurschner creatively combined sculpture in the Art Nouveau style with electricity. The sinuous movement of the mermaid's tail and back, which illustrates the flowing, sweeping motion of the French and Belgian Art Nouveau styles, contributes to the sculptural qualities of the lamp and contrasts with the severity of form and decoration in the work of other Viennese artists. While many period artists employed stylized forms of nature as their motifs, Gurschner crafted the shade of this lamp from an actual nautilus shell and incorporated it into the bronze to make it appear part of the base.
Like Franois-Raoul Larche, Gustave Gurschner creatively combined sculpture in the Art Nouveau style with electricity. The sinuous movement of the mermaid's tail and back, which illustrates the flowing, sweeping motion of the French and Belgian Art Nouveau styles, contributes to the sculptural qualities of the lamp and contrasts with the severity of form and decoration in the work of other Viennese artists. While many period artists employed stylized forms of nature as their motifs, Gurschner crafted the shade of this lamp from an actual nautilus shell and incorporated it into the bronze to make it appear part of the base.