The exhibition features 56 pieces by Louis Comfort Tiffany and 47 by Émile Gallé, as well as 22 pieces by members of the Nancy School. All of the works are from the museum's own collection with the exception of a collection of Japanese enamel boxes from Budapest's Ferenc Hopp Museum of Oriental Art. The boxes were included to demonstrate the use of delicate Japanese motifs in the works of both Tiffany and Gallé, art historian Gabriella Balla explained.
Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) was the son of Charles Lewis Tiffany, the founder of the famous jewellery and silverware maker Tiffany and Company. After learning his trade at several glasshouses in Brooklyn, he set up his own interior design company which flourished in part because of the support and connections of his father. Later on he set up a separate glass company, using unique methods to create coloured glass which he called Favrile. His fame was cemented with the award of a gold medal at the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris.
Pieces made at the Tiffany workshops fetch high prices at auction. One of his lamps recently sold at an auction in London for GBP 3 million.
Émile Gallé (1846-1904) was one of the major forces of the French Art Nouveau movement. The son of a furniture maker, Gallé studied botany and drawing in his youth and later learned to make glass at Meisenthal. He developed a highly original style carving or etching plant motifs on heavy, opaque glass. His motifs include buds, leaves, apples, twigs, water lilies and flying insects.
The exhibition features glass masterpieces by Hungarian artists too, including a commission for the dining room of Count Tivadar Andrássy executed by József Rippl-Rónai, windows by Miksa Roth and ornamental glasses by István Sovánka. Works by two living Hungarian artists, Márton Horváth and Ágnes Smetana, both heavily influenced by Art Nouveau glass, will also be included.
For younger visitors to the exhibition, a room has been set up where children can make their own Art Nouveau creations while their parents and grandparents rest on Tonet chairs from the museum's collection.
Author: Gabriella Valaczkay
