Daum Nancy

Daum Nancy glass factory (Auguste Daum [1825-1909] and Antonin Daum [1864-1931]) developed the Art Nouveau style. They received the “Grand Prix” medal at the world exhibition in 1900.

They worked with similar techniques like the factory Gallé, that also was located in Nancy: the representing of motifs of scenery or nature with mostly plants or flowers, by etching the glass that existed of several glass layers. Daum and Gallé formed with other glass and furniture factory’s the so-called “Ecole de Nancy”.

There was also in the technique of working with glass an interesting difference between the two great glass factories. At the DAUM factory was it more common to work with the technique of “pâte-de-verre”: that is working with colored glass-powder that was melted into the colorless glass to get a colored basis. Then there came upon the basis several glass layers that were etched in motifs of the nature.

The very valuable pieces of the Daum vases are those with the so-called ‘appliques’: pieces of glass that were placed upon the art object when it came out of the oven while it was still hot. That demands a high skill of working with glass.

Not only the high skill of working with glass was a feature of the factory Daum, the family Daum invited also very famous artists from Nancy for the developing new forms of glass: Almaric Walter for the technique of the pate-de-verre, and Henri Bergé and Charles Schneider for the technique of etching the glass. About 1896 the designer Jaques Gruber was also invited to develop forms of glass, mostly opalescent forms of glass with a special kind of etching and gold painting. For the lamps or luster’s the factory of Daum worked together with other famous artists as Louis Majorelle or Edgar Brandt.

In another chapter we will give some information about Charles Schneider who became famous later on with the factory of his own, that was called “Le Verre Francais”.

After World War I Paul Daum developed more glass forms in the Art Deco style: etched glass with firm and more geometric lines with clear colors. In 1925 the factory of Daum won a price on the International Exposition of Decorative Art in Paris.