r - The Metropolitan Museum of Art

An early center of Art Nouveau developed
at Nancy, in the French province
of Lorraine, under the leadership of
the glass and furniture designer Emile
Galle. Beginning in the 1880s, Galle
exhorted his colleagues to derive their
ornament from the direct study of nature,
citing the precedent of Japanese art. This
naturalisticoncern is evident in details of
the Museum's dressing table-sink by Louis
Majorelle (1859-1926), a prominent
member of Galle's circle. The bronze
pulls, cast in the form of leaves and
berries, are typical of the Ecole de Nancy
Majorelle, however, went beyond the
surface application of floral ornament to a
fundamental reinterpretation of structure
along organic lines, and was, as a result,
considered the eccentric of the group. In
this unique work, commissioned by
Eugene Corbin, a noted patron of the
Ecole de Nancy, Majorelle incorporated
the technology of modern plumbing in a
bold artistic statement, creating a structure
that branches majestically outward
like a lofty tree rising from a massive base.
1900-10. Honduras mahogany Macassar
ebony gilt-bronze, mirror glass, with
marble top, h. 86% in. Gift of The Sydney
and Frances Lewis Foundation, 1979.4
9