# Vase > Emile Galle - c. 1900 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/emile-galle/galle-vase-cleveland/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-18 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Emile Galle - **Date:** c. 1900 - **Medium:** Glass with pink and green inclusions, cameo cut - **Dimensions:** 13.5 x 8.6 x 4.7 cm (5 5/16 x 3 3/8 x 1 7/8 in.) - **Object type:** Glass - **Period:** French Art Nouveau, Ecole de Nancy, c. 1900 - **Current location:** Cleveland Museum of Art, Gallery 221, 19th Century Decorative Arts, Cleveland, Ohio - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary A small cameo glass vase cut with a large winged insect and a spray of blossoms, made in Emile Galle's Nancy workshop around 1900 and bought by the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1979 from Macklowe Gallery in New York. It is ordinary in the best sense: an example of the industrial cameo line that carried Galle's Art Nouveau glass beyond the small circle who could afford his unique marqueterie-sur-verre showpieces, signed but undated, unstarred, and undocumented for the better part of a century before it reached New York.Galle founded the Ecole de Nancy in 1901, died of leukemia in 1904, and left a firm that his widow and son-in-law ran under his name for another three decades - production that a still-active, named scholarship has spent the last several years re-dating year by year, because the difference between a Galle made by Galle and a Galle made afterward, honestly or not, still moves real money on the market this vase belongs to.This record sets out what the Cleveland Museum's own accession file documents, what the current scholarship on Galle's posthumous and fraudulent production establishes in general, and where the specific chain of ownership for this vase runs out. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **c. 1900** Manufactured in Emile Galle's firm, Nancy, France `[documented]` (manufacture) Cleveland dates the vase c. 1900, within a supporting range of 1895 to 1905. The unstarred signature is consistent with manufacture during Galle's lifetime, or in the short window between his death in September 1904 and the introduction of the posthumous star mark in 1905; the museum's dating does not distinguish between the two. - **-before 1979** Unknown `[unknown]` (gap) No owner is documented between the vase's manufacture and its appearance in the stock of Macklowe Gallery, New York, at some point before the Cleveland Museum's 7 May 1979 accession date. Three quarters of a century, two world wars and a transatlantic crossing fall inside this gap, and none of it is recorded in the sources consulted. - **before 1979-1979-05-07** Macklowe Gallery, New York (Lloyd and Barbara Macklowe) `[documented]` (dealer stock, sale to museum) Cleveland's own provenance field records the immediate source as (Macklowe Gallery, New York); the parenthetical form is the museum's convention for a dealer rather than a private owner. Macklowe Gallery had specialized in French Art Nouveau glass, including Galle, since it opened in 1971. No date of Macklowe's own acquisition, nor any price paid by Macklowe or charged to Cleveland, is published in the sources consulted. - **1979-05-07-present** Cleveland Museum of Art `[documented]` (purchase and accession) Accessioned 7 May 1979 as 1979.10, acquired through the Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund, an acquisitions fund built on a bequest from the estate of the IBM executive Andrew R. Jennings (d. 1931) and administered by his widow Martha Holden Jennings and later by the foundation bearing her name. The fund credit indicates a purchase rather than a gift; contrast the museum's Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Roland Burelli credit on a different Galle vase in the same collection, 1983.225. The purchase price is not published in the sources consulted. ## Open questions - Who owned this vase between its manufacture around 1900 and its appearance in Macklowe Gallery's stock before 1979? No owner is documented across that span. - What did the Cleveland Museum pay for it in 1979, and what, if anything, did Macklowe Gallery pay to acquire it? Neither figure is published in the sources consulted. - Is this piece lifetime work, or was it made in the several months between Galle's death in September 1904 and the star mark's introduction in 1905? The museum's own 1895-1905 date range does not resolve this, and the unstarred signature is consistent with either reading. - What insect is depicted? Cleveland's own record does not name the species, and this record has been unable to go beyond noting a general resemblance to a grasshopper or a cicada. - Does this vase carry a model or pattern name in Galle's own production records or in any dealer catalogue? None is published in the sources found for this record. - Did the 1988 Art Nouveau in France exhibition at Cleveland produce a catalogue with further discussion of this piece, beyond the citation recorded in the accession file? Not established here. ## Sources - [1] Cleveland Museum of Art, collection webpage, Vase, Emile Galle, c. 1900, accession 1979.10. - [2] Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access API, full record for accession 1979.10 (object id 149466): tombstone, dimensions, inscription, provenance, exhibitions, citations, credit line and accession date. - [3] Cleveland Museum of Art, collection webpage, Vase (Emile Galle, enameled glass), accession 1983.225, for the museum's contrasting Gift of donor-credit convention. - [4] Lee, Sherman E. "The Year in Review for 1979." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 67, no. 3 (1980): 58-99, this vase reproduced as cat. no. 57, p. 76. Citation as transcribed in the museum's own accession record (source 2); the original Bulletin article was not independently retrieved for this record and is flagged for direct verification. - [5] Hawley, Henry H. Glass Today: American Studio Glass from Cleveland Collections. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1997, this vase reproduced as fig. 5, p. 14, and mentioned p. 15. Citation as transcribed in the museum's own accession record (source 2); the volume was not independently retrieved for this record and is flagged for direct verification. Not independently retrieved; relayed exactly as transcribed on Cleveland's own accession page (source 1), which is the URL given here pending direct verification of the original 1997 volume. - [6] Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, Case Western Reserve University, "Martha Holden Jennings Foundation." - [7] Macklowe Gallery, "About," gallery history page. - [8] Macklowe Gallery, "The Visual Poetry of Emile Galle," gallery news/blog. - [9] Samuel Provost, "The Galle signatures on glass after 1904: a tentative chronology, part I, 1904-1920," 28 December 2020. Specialist chronology for the posthumous star mark's introduction (no earlier than January 1905) and withdrawal (May 1908), based on Henriette Galle's letters to Albert Daigueperce and the firm director Emile Lang's 1908 correspondence. - [10] Samuel Provost, "The Galle signatures on glass after 1904: a tentative chronology, part II, 1920-1936." Specialist chronology for the firm's 1920s reorganizations, the 1931 furnace closure, the 1928-1936 documentation gap, and the 1936 end of production and signing. - [11] Samuel Provost, "Fake Galles I: when a floral design...", April 2023. Specialist categorization of Galle forgeries: rebaptized rival-house glass, modern reproductions (Romanian, Chinese), and altered genuine pieces. - [12] Philip Chasen, "More information on how to spot reproduction Galle vases," Philip Chasen Antiques, 25 November 2010. TRADE SOURCE (appraiser), not peer-reviewed scholarship. - [13] Chiswick Auctions, "Galle Glass: Art Nouveau Craftsmanship in Colour and Form." AUCTION-HOUSE SOURCE, published collecting guidance rather than a specific lot's condition report. - [14] Wikipedia, "Emile Galle." TERTIARY. Used for biographical dates, the marqueterie sur verre patent, exhibition history, the Ecole de Nancy founding, political engagement, insect and floral motifs, and the 1904 death. Flagged for replacement with Francois Le Tacon's scholarly biography and the Musee de l'Ecole de Nancy's own published catalogues. - [15] Musee de l'Ecole de Nancy, "The Ecole de Nancy," official museum history page. - [16] Barnebys Magazine, "Floral Grace: The Art Glass of Emile Galle." - [17] TeacherCurator, "Emile Galle," educational reference page, for Galle's stated aim of his work and the motto over his workshop door. SECONDARY, aimed at students; flagged for replacement with a primary Galle text such as Ecrits pour l'art (1908). - [18] WorldCollectorsNet, "Emile Galle Glass," collector reference feature. - [19] Wikimedia Commons file record, Rijksmuseum vase with maple branches, BK-1983-35. - [20] Wikimedia Commons file record, Rijksmuseum vase with honesty seed-pods, BK-1972-74. - [21] Wikimedia Commons file record, Daum Freres vase with cornflowers, Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt. - [22] Wikimedia Commons file record, portrait of Emile Galle by Victor Prouve, 1893, Bibliotheque municipale de Nancy. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.