Muller Frères - Vase - Glass

An elegant vase from Muller Frères Verrerie in Lunéville.
Following the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, the Muller family left their hometown of Kalhausen to settle in Lunéville in 1870.
Having become Lorraineans, the eldest of the siblings, Henri and Désiré, learned glassmaking at Cristalleries de Saint Louis before joining Emile Gallé's company in 1893. After four years with the Nancy master as decorators/engravers, the two brothers left him in 1897 to create their own workshop.
Their production quickly rivaled Gallé's and Daum's.
Inspired by the naturalist aesthetics of Art Nouveau, the Muller brothers produced glassware decorated with cameos or enamel. Then they developed a specific glass decoration technique: fluogravure.
Buoyed by their early commercial successes, Henri and Désiré opened with their other brother Eugène new workshops and initiated semi-industrial production, taking part in the grand Expositions and receiving multiple medals.
After a pause during World War I, they restored and modernized their factories in 1919 and their pieces would henceforth be signed "Muller Frères Lunéville".
After the Great Depression of 1929, the business declined and the family had to close the Paris and Berlin depots and then relinquish their enterprise in 1936.