Muller Frères - Vase - Glass

An elegant vase from Verrerie MULLER Frères in Lunéville.
Following the annexation of Alsace-Moselle, the Muller family leaves their hometown of Kalhausen to settle in Lunéville in 1870.
Having become Lorraineans, the elder brothers, Henri and Désiré, learn glassmaking at Cristalleries de Saint Louis before joining Emile Gallé's company in 1893. After four years with the Nancy master as decorators and engravers, the two brothers leave him in 1897 to create their own workshop.
Rapidly their production competes with that of Gallé and Daum.
Inspired by the naturalist aesthetics of Art Nouveau, the Muller brothers produce glassware decorated with cameos or enameling. They then develop a specific technique for glass decoration: fluogravure.
Buoyed by their early commercial successes, Henri and Désiré open new workshops with their other brother Eugène and launch semi-industrial production, participating in the grand Expositions and receiving multiple medals.
After a pause during the First World War, they restore and modernize their factories in 1919 and their pieces will henceforth be signed "Muller Frères Lunéville".
After the great crisis of 1929, business declines and the family must close the depots in Paris and Berlin and then relinquish their company in 1936.