Art Nouveau Glass

Glass is where Art Nouveau is most itself. The movement's line could be drawn in a poster, but in glass it could be made physical: layered, etched, acid-cut and blown into forms that a factory could not repeat. Gallé, Daum and Tiffany each found a different way to put colour inside the material rather than on it.

That is the collecting distinction, and it holds across all three: a cameo piece has its colour in layers that were cut back; pâte-de-verre has it cast in; favrile has it in the metal itself. The technique names the value, and each is signed.

The 1890s are the experimental phase: cameo and wheel-engraved work, signed by the artist rather than the works.

Around 1900 the techniques industrialise — pâte-de-verre, favrile, and the lamp as a commercial object — and the output grows while the signatures stay.