Tripod Pedestal Table, Émile Gallé

Here is an article about a tripod pedestal table designed by Émile Gallé. He was a significant designer of Art Nouveau and a leading figure in creating interior pieces, glassware, ceramics and pottery. As a passionate artist, he never lost his inspiration and didn’t surrender to the power establishments. He gradually formed his radical attitudes, accomplished his ideas in cooperation with other European artists, and held on to the concept of the unity of art, crystallized in various types of design. Without copying those artistic elements from the past, the architects, jewellers, drapery creators, glassworkers and furniture designers walked hand in hand to pass through the most virulent criticism of their time. So did Émile Gallé and his colleagues. They moved without doubt deliberately in the new art direction.

It is fascinating to know that Émile Gallé had studied natural science. As a skilled botanist, he used his expertise in French Flora to produce decorative art. His inspiration was derived from the organic shapes of plants and flowers, and he used them in an asymmetric construct.

The pieces of his furniture looked like “Plantae” and an arrangement of branches and blossoms. Also, the ends of his artworks seemed to be the plant roots, and their framework looked like tree trunks. The sculptural shapes of forest scenes and the undersea world adorned his designs. He developed his geological vision of earth and planets, immersed himself in the anatomy and the structure of organisms and their parts, and created natural themes.

Product: Tripod pedestal table
Description/ Material: Walnut with various wood marquetry and dragonfly decoration
Dimension: 75.5 x 59 cm
Location and the link:
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium

Look at the featured picture above of a small round table with a central leg, the “Gueridon aux libellules”. It was designed by Émile Gallé and kept in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium.

Get more information on this overview page.

 Text: Lalerou
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