Style Other / Ref.11513

François-Eugène ROUSSEAU (1827-1890) and Ernest LEVEILLE (1841-1913), vase called "à la carpe", made of tranlucent moulded blown glass with red, orange and gold inclusions

Blown and pressed translucent glass with red, orange and gold inclusions.
H : 29 cm ; Base width : 11 cm ; Base depth : 7 cm.
Circa 1885 - 1890.
Signed under the base "E. Rousseau Paris".

Important Japanese-inspired vase featuring a high-relief carp springing from the water. Made out of blown and pressed translucent glass with red, orange and gold inclusions, signed under the base « E. Rousseau Paris ».
Work of art most likely made in the workshops of the glass factory Appert Frères.

Appert Frères is a french company specialized in glassmaking, opened between 1832 and 1947. Founded in 1832 by Louis-Adrien Appert in Clichy under the name of "Maison Appert", the company was active until 1947, when it was dissolved. In 1858, it takes the name "Appert et Fils" when the two sons of the founder, Adrien-Antoine and Léon-Alfred Appert, take part in the company. It is in 1865 that the company is renamed "Appert Frères", when Louis-Adrien Appert withdraws from the activities of the glass factory one year before his death. The Appert Frères factory supplies raw materials for smaller glass factories : glass, colored crystals and enamels, for example. A large part of its activity consists of selling semi-finished products to workshops where pieces are then finished (decoration, enamelling, etc.).
On the other hand, Appert Frères glassmakers produced themselves finished products on behalf of glass designers, the best known of their client was Eugène Rousseau, or for their own account. Léon-Alfred Appert, student at the École Centrale in Paris, is at the origin of a major innovation in the world of glass: compressed air blowing. He managed to mechanize the work of the glassblower. However, his invention will not be widely used by glassmakers, particularly because of a high cost of investment.
François-Eugène Rousseau (1827-1890), known as Eugène Rousseau, is a glasswmaker master who established himself in 1855 as a merchant specialized in porcelain and earthenware at 43, rue Coquillière in Paris. Around 1867, he devotes himself to glass and appealed to the talents of Eugène Michel to engrave a range of glassware. He pays particular attention to the innovative techniques of his contemporaries and asks Marc-Louis Solon, then decorator at the Sèvres Manufactory, to produce so-called "paste-on-paste" works that Solon will sign under the pseudonym « Milès ». In 1867, while he was interested in Japanese motifs, Eugène Rousseau asks Félix Bracquemond to create a porcelain service which will be exhibited at the World’s Fair in Paris, where for the first time a European artist directly copies a Japanese artist, reproducing animal figures from the Hokusai’s Manga. The two hundred pieces are made by the Manufacture Lebeuf, Milliet et Cie located in Creil and Montereau. Following the success of this service, the Japanese aesthetic will influence Rousseau's production. In 1869, two of his painted glasses were purchased by the Victoria and Albert Museum. In 1884, he was the first to display crackled glass at the Central Union of Decorative Arts, made after a Venetian technique from the 16th century. His Japanese glassworks produced with the probable help of the brothers Appert in Clichy, will appear in 1874 in Paris at the Fourth Exhibition of the Central Union of Fine Arts Applied to Industry. Member of the Central Union of Decorative Arts since its creation in 1862, he received the cross of the Legion of Honor.
At the end of his career, he partnered with Ernest Leveillé, who was also his student. Leveillé will continue the work of Eugène Rousseau after his death, having bought his workshop rue Coquillière in 1885.

Ernest-Baptiste Léveillé (1841-1913), known as Ernest Léveillé, is a merchant and editor of porcelains and crystals. Founder of the Maison Léveillé in 1869 at 74 boulevard Haussmann in Paris, he therefore acquired in 1885 the house E. Rousseau and worked there from 1886 to 1890 under the name of "Maison Rousseau and Léveillé united ». Léveillé created the models and had them made, then engraved, according to very precise indications. His cracked vases engraved on three layers of glass earned him a gold medal. Returned "E. Léveillé" after the death of Eugène Rousseau in 1890, the store is transferred in 1899 to 140 Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris. In 1902, Ernest Léveillé teamed up with Maison Toy, a porcelain and crystal company, under the name "Maisons Toy and Leveillé united". The company is then located at 10 rue de la Paix.

Bibliography: 
Art nouveau floral – Siegfried Wichmann, éditions Chêne, Paris, 1986. Same model in colors at page 103.

We propose a similar vase in an other color signed by the same artist.