A moth-inspired bed

This is a sphinx moth bed built in 1904, part of a photo tour of a French magistrate’s home shared by Alexandre Prévot.

My lazy Google translation of the text that accompanied this image states:

This bed belongs to a group controlled by the magistrate Henry Hirsch also included a dresser, a wardrobe, two chairs and a showcase. These pieces were made in 1904, shortly before the disappearance of Gallé.

Dawn is raised at the foot of the bed by two ephemeral and the variegated pearly wings, framing the cosmogonic egg engraved crystal of a butterfly flying. For the happiness and hope of succeeding birth fragility and impermanence, illustrated by the dusk to the headboard The Great Sphinx with flexible wings, like a curtain closes, and the ominous head falls with the night on a romantic informed of pearl chips landscape. It is death that occurs in the relentless cycle of life.

True to his poetic approach, Gallé always pushes further the intimate association of the idea to matter – by uniting wood, glass and mother of pearl. In choosing the advantage of a refined structure, unprecedented in its furniture, Gallé also appears on the threshold of his life, in turn benefit from the innovations of his colleagues in the School of Nancy, including Majorelle.

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