Small Tray with a Chameleon (Vide-Poche "Caméléon")

Expand

IIIFView PDF

Images(2)

Small Tray with a Chameleon (Vide-Poche "Caméléon")

Designer Henri Marie Joseph Bergé (French, 1870-1937)

Manufacturer Victor Amalric Walter (French, 1870-1959)

Dateabout 1920

Dimensions3 9/16 × 6 7/8 × 6 in. (9.1 × 17.5 × 15.3 cm)

MediumPolychrome transparent and opaque glass, mold-made pâte-de-verre.

ClassificationGlass

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

2010.20

Not on View

Label TextDesigned as a tray to empty the contents of your pockets into, this bowl was made using pâte-de-verre (“glass paste”), in which finely ground glass is mixed with a binding agent to make a paste, and then color oxides added. The colored paste is then shaped in a mold and fired in a kiln. Victor Amalric Walter was a master at this technique, creating the sophisticated shifting colors of the bowl and of the highly naturalistic chameleon.Comparative ReferencesSee also Exhibition catalog, Jean-Luc Olivié and Suzanne Frantz, Particle Theories: International Pâte de Verre and Other Cast Glass Granulations, p. 14. Museum of American Glass, Wheaton Village, Millville, New Jersey, April 1. December 31, 2005, p.21, fig. 22. Cf. Arwas, Victor. Glass: art nouveau to art deco. New York, N.Y. : H.N. Abrams, 1987, pp. 353-359 (A. Walter). Cf. Broadfield House Glass Museum. Cf. Exhibition poster of A glass menagerie: Pâte de verre by Amalric Walter. Kingswinford, West Midlands, UK : Broadfield House Glass Museum, 2006. Exhibition held August 19, 2006-February 4, 2007. (Pictured on poster is "Chameleon Dish.") Cf. Makus, Horst. "Neubewertung wirksam: Französische Keramik um 1900." Antiquitäten Zeitung, no. 10, May 11, 1990, pp. 336-337, ill. (Pâte de verre copies of ceramic vases and Tanagra-style figures by Amalric Walter.) Cf. Stewart, Max and Keith Cummings. The Amalric Walter research project: the techniques and methodology of Amalric Walter 1870-1959, Wolverhampton: University of Wolverhampton, 2007.