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Émile Gallé

Recent years have witnessed a remarkable revival of interest in the belle époque period, from the vogue for costume dramas to the passion for Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Design, and art nouveau in particular, have been a key focus of this revival as the enormous attendance figures at the 2000 Art nouveau 1890-1914 exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum attested. This special issue considers the contribution of a key protagonist within this complex historical moment: Émile Gallé. The articles embrace a diversity of methodological approaches, synthesising visual and textual analysis to throw light upon different aspects of his oeuvre helping to reveal the cultural history of the period’s shifting artistic, scientific, institutional and political identities. The commitment amongst a growing sector of art historians to widen the canon beyond the confines of the ‘high arts’ of painting, sculpture and architecture to include the visual cultures of design and material culture has also informed many of the interventions in this volume.