"Par une telle nuit"

Gall�’s work reflects the contemporary interest in botany and entomology, and he turned his knowledge and studies to revitalizing the decorative arts. The present cup is of three-layered crystal, inclusions of metallic parcels (gold and platinum), wheel-engraved decoration, partially gilded engraving.

In June 1892, the Op�ra-Comique de Paris gave a series of performances of Les Troyens à Carthage, an opera by Berlioz strongly condemned at its creation in 1863. Gall� attended one of the performances with enthusiasm. Two years later, he made this cup and engraved on its foot the sentence “Par une telle nuit” (By such a night …), taken from the duet of Dido and Aeneas in the second act. Gall� does not seek to evoke the epic nights to which the two characters allude in their dialogue. What the glassmaker proposes is the composition of a night in which nothing disturbs the beauty, harmonious and melodious as is the music of Berlioz.