Making in Multichrome
Gallé brought his furnishings to life by using both imported materials and the ancient technique of marquetry that had origins outside France. Marquetry is a woodworking technique in which thin slices of wood, called veneers, are applied to the face of a wooden object in order to form decorative patterns or scenes. Sometimes, the veneers are inlaid, or placed into cutouts on the surface of the object. Gallé’s marquetry panels achieve a spectacular range of tonality, an effect made possible through his use of a variety of wood species, including bois des îles. The tonal variation of the materials allowed Gallé to execute extremely detailed images in his marquetry. Gallé’s marquetry practice was rooted in a long tradition of woodworkers that came before him, that extended well beyond the history of the Kingdom of France. Marquetry has been traced back to 350 BCE, in Halicarnassus, modern-day Turkey, and flourished in France in the eighteenth century as woodworkers created new sumptuous designs to adorn Versailles, such as Jean-François Oeben’s design for the Bureau du Roi (1760-69, Figure 31), completed by Jean Henri Riesener.[1] By the time that Gallé began working in wood, artists had been experimenting with combinations of veneers and application techniques for millennia. Gallé took the challenge to innovate something new, to find new combinations of materials that had not been employed by the craftsmen that came before him. He asked whether all the combinations had been exhausted in his 1889 notes to the jury. His response: “I do not think so.”[2] He continued to experiment in the eleven years between expositions, and at the 1900 Exposition, Gallé’s exhibits showed that he still had not run out of ideas. He was persistently innovating with new materials, and new combinations of materials to create modern imagery. Gallé viewed bois des îles as a tool that allowed him to push the bounds of marquetry. Similarly, Gallé viewed marquetry as a way to practice and improve on something that originated outside of France.
Figure 31: Jean-François Oeben and Jean Henri Riesener, Bureau du Roi, 1760-69. Bronze, marquetry of a variety of fine woods, Sèvres porcelain. 163 x 85 x 158 cm. Château de Versailles, Versailles.
Figure 32: Émile Gallé, Ipomea (also Commode Morning Glory), 1900. Marquetry of several different woods on a carcass of oak and willow, 87 x 88 x 57 cm. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Gallé’s Ipomea (also known as Commode, Morning Glory, 1900, Figure 32) features stark color contrasts in its marquetry on all sides, but particularly on the side panels. In this work, Gallé has taken to creating a study of the Morning Glory flower. The flower is depicted across several life stages, in both two dimensions and three. Gallé has paid careful attention to the anatomy of the flower, incorporating both the leaves and tendrils of vines that extend from them. The twisting, vining legs give the piece movement that helps to offset the heavy, stagnant shape of the main body of the piece, and have the benefit of mimicking the vines of the Morning Glory. Where the legs meet the body, the joints are ornamented by the closed blooms of the Morning Glory flower. The verticality of the buds helps to pull the eye up and up to the fluted edge of another blossom, this one opening up to the tabletop. The face of the commode, the drawer fronts, are decorated with a landscape in marquetry. Here, Gallé chose golden tones that seem to be illuminated from within, evoking the idea of the sun shining down on the flowers. The Morning Glories seem to be billowing in a breeze created by the natural veining in the wood. Simply by using various varieties and tones of wood, Gallé ] managed to illustrate a clear scene that imparts on the viewer the same sense they would feel looking at a painted landscape of flowers on a hill on a breezy early summer day. The sides of the commode accentuate the tonal range that Gallé realized in this piece. The background here is much darker than on the front side, creating a stark contrast between the background and the Morning Glories. Here, the flowers are much lighter in tone, and echo the shapes of the apex flowers in bloom on the corners of the piece. Variations in wood tone and the slight curvature of the sides help to create the illusion of depth. The image itself is made possible by the array of wood varieties that Gallé had access to, made accessible to him by the colonial wood trade.
Figure 33: Émile Gallé, L’Orchidée et L’Insecte mueble d’appui (The Orchid and the Insect Chest of Drawers), 1888-89. Carved Madagascan ebony, false acacia, carved colored woods, chased and patinated bronze, antique Egyptian green marble. From Alastair Duncan and Georges de Bartha, Gallé Furniture (Suffolk: Antique Collectors’ Club, 2012), 32.
L’Orchidée et L’Insecte meuble d’appui (The Orchid and the Insect Chest of Drawers, 1889-90, Figure 33) displays even more color contrast in its marquetry, moving beyond usual wood tones. Gallé’s variation of materials for this piece create a rich and varied palette, with yellows, reds, whites, greens, and deep blacks that add to the visual interest of the piece. The chest of drawers was initially on display at the 1889 Exposition Universelle, and then Gallé made the choice to include it again in the 1900 Exposition. It is among the most ornate and detailed of his works. It features incredible amounts of both carving and marquetry, undeniably confirming it as an object of luxury furniture. The marquetry’s wide range of colors evidences Gallé’s use of many types of wood in this project, and conveys to the viewer the exoticness of the materials used. As suggested by the title, the work is adorned with orchids and brightly-patterned insects on all three sections. Orchids were notably popular among Gallé’s works, a reflection of the public interest in orchids that had grown in recent years, as France’s colonial activities made the flowers more readily available to French audiences.[3] The middle section overlays the insects and orchids onto a multi-tonal geometric field of elongated hexagons. The hexagons are a deep burgundy color, punctuated by an intensely bright outline of gold. Here, the geometric pattern of the marquetry initially contradicts the natural origins of the material used, yet undoubtedly brings to mind the form of a honeycomb, relating it to the insects that adorn the work. The left and right sections feature inlaid orchids and insects, highlighted with a similarly bright golden hue, laid over a curvilinear scale pattern. Gallé has taken utmost advantage of the natural grain of the wood: each scale is further decorated by the natural curving grain of the wood, creating an almost hypnotic, undulating field. The angular hexagons contrast with the rolling swells of the scales, but their tidy and organized arrangement contrasts even more with the organic and seemingly haphazard placement of orchids and insects. In his 1889 Notes to the Jury, Gallé described the piece as follows:
Large dresser with drawers on the front and side of carved Madagascan ebony and false acacia below, inlaid with carved coloured woods. Chased and patinated bronze. Top of antique Egyptian green marble. Theme of ornamentation: orchids and exotic insects. Bronze models and drawings by Émile Gallé.[4]
Gallé made his interest in using diverse and exotic materials evident to his readers in this text. Moreover, Gallé seems to have placed importance on the source of these materials, taking care to outline their country of origin in the object description. Once again, Gallé emphasized the exotic origins of the materials of the piece, placing himself in the position of the colonizer, civilizing the spoils of his conquest.