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IG_1: Stucco and glass window with flowers in a vase
(FRA_Paris_MuseeDuLouvre_IG_1)

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Titre

Stucco and glass window with flowers in a vase

Type d'objet
Dimensions
61.5 x 38 x 3.9 cm (with frame)
Artiste
Lieu de production
Datation
late 13th–early 14th centuries AH / late 19th century CE
Lieu
Numéro d'inventaire
OA 7466/1
Projet de recherche
Auteur·e et date de la notice
Francine Giese, Sophie Wolf 2025

Iconographie

Description

The design of this stucco and glass window consists of a small vase with flowers arranged symmetrically along the central axis. Despite their stylized depiction, the types of flowers in the vase are recognizable: carnations, tulips and lilies. The vase is flanked by roses and lilies and framed by a semicircular arch. Two four-petalled flowers adorn the spandrels above the arch. The floral design is worked out in relief against a perforated background that lies c.10mm below the surface.

The latticework is painted with a light-brown colour and a dark varnish (see Research).

The window has been restored and is preserved without its original wooden frame (see Technique and Research).

Code Iconclass
25G41 · fleurs
25G41(CARNATION) · fleurs : oeillet
25G41(LILY) · fleurs : lis
25G41(ROSE) · fleurs : rose
25G41(TULIP) · fleurs : tulipe
41A6711 · fleurs dans un vase
Mot-clés Iconclass
bouquet · fleur · lis · oeillet · rose · tulipe · vase

Matériaux, technique et état de conservation

Matériaux

Gypsum plaster; colourless glass; coloured glass (green, blue, yellow, and red flashed glass); ochre-coloured paint; varnish, wood.

Technique

Stucco panels are produced according to the traditional production technique described by several authors (for example, Foy, 2005, pp. 152–154), by pouring gypsum plaster into a frame, which is usually made of wood and has a hollow profile. The design is usually transferred to the stucco panel using stencils and then carved as an openwork relief using various tools (gouge, serrated knife, chisel, file, etc.). Depending on the height and position of the window in the room, the openings are tapered and oriented in such a way that they direct light towards the viewer. The individual openings are then covered with pieces of transparent colourless or coloured sheet glass on the flat, rear of the panel; sometimes one glass piece covers several smaller holes. The pieces are fixed to the stucco panel by being embedded in a thin layer of gypsum plaster. Stucco and glass windows are usually mounted in window openings in their wooden frames, with the sculpted side facing the inside of the room.

The object described here is not framed. According to a detailed examination (Bailly et al., 2008), all but one of the stucco and glass windows (OA 7466/39, IG 168) in the Delort de Gléon Collection were removed from their wooden frames at an unknown date. The lack of round profiles to the now straight edges of the c.20-mm-thick stucco lattice corroborates this hypothesis.

The plaster layer fixing the pieces of glass to the back of the panel is 2–3mm thick. There are two types of plaster, a greyish one (probably original) and a white one (probably repair material). Underneath the pieces of glass, in the area around the openings, there are traces of a brown, shiny substance exhibiting a craquelure; we assume that these are the remains of an animal or vegetable glue that was used to fix the pieces of glass and prevent them from being displaced while pouring the embedding stucco.

The latticework is laid out on two levels: the main design (level 0) was carved out of the stucco panel using a sharp, knife-like tool and following the lines of a preliminary drawing incised in the surface of the panel. The second level (level –1), which lies c.10mm below level 0, shows irregularly spaced, conical perforations with diameters of c.5mm. The holes seem to have been pierced – rather than drilled – into the still soft (not fully set) stucco using a metal or wooden nail or pin. They are slightly tapered towards the back. The distances between the holes range between 1 and 8mm. The main design and the perforations have been worked in such a way that the incident light is directed downwards, indicating that the window was made to be positioned in the upper part of a wall. At an unknown date, the front of the latticework was painted with an ochre-coloured paint and subsequently with a brown varnish.

The pieces of glass are of both colourless and coloured glass. The colourless glass sometimes has a greenish or greyish tint. Flashed glass, that is, glass composed of a thicker layer of transparent glass and a thinner layer of strongly coloured material, has been used for the red pieces, and maybe also for the dark-blue ones (see Bailly et al., 2008, p. 10). Some of the pieces of glass show small, elongated bubbles characteristic of mouth-blown sheet glass, probably produced using the broad-sheet method. The pieces of glass were cut according to the design of the latticework using a diamond cutter, which left scratch marks on some of them. The coloured pieces of glass are slightly thicker (1–1.5mm) than the colourless ones (0.5–1mm). The coloured glass has been used for the floral design at level 0; the small round holes at level –1 are backed with both colourless and yellow glass (the latter along the borders of the panel).

Etat de conservation et restaurations

The stucco and glass window is preserved without its original wooden frame and is in good condition: the latticework is intact, and there are no glass losses.

According to the results of an in-depth examination of the stucco and glass windows of the Delort de Gléon Collection carried out in 2008, this, as well as the other windows from the collection, have been restored five times since their acquisition in Cairo (Bailly et al., 2008, pp. 16–25).

The most recent restoration was carried out after this detailed examination, in 2009–2010 (Fellinger et al., 2022). During restoration, defects and losses in the stucco lattice were filled with white stucco plaster and missing glass was replaced. The new pieces of glass are embedded in a thin layer of off-white plaster on the back of the stucco grille. There are remains of the original grey embedding layer, which is more grainy and less pure than the repair plaster.

Historique de l'oeuvre

Recherche

From a technical and iconographic point of view, this stucco and glass window corresponds to one of the standard types of qamariyya widespread in Egypt during the Ottoman period. Similar windows can be found in several of the collections studied (see for instance IG_7, IG_166, IG_178, IG_255, IG_356). The representation of flowers in a vase is a widespread motif in Islamic arts. It can also be found in numerous other media, such as ceramics, wood panelling, wall paintings, and textiles, over a long period of time, and in both sacred and profane contexts. Depending on the quality of the design, the type of flower cannot always be identified. Among the most sophisticated examples of stucco and glass windows with the vase motif are those in the apartments of the Crown Prince at the Topkapı Serail (early 17th century CE, date of the windows uncertain) and those in the Sultan’s Lodge (Hünkâr Kasrı) of the Yeni Cami (1661–1663 CE, date of the windows uncertain), both in Istanbul.

Stucco and glass windows with flowers in a vase also aroused the interest of Western artists and architects, as is attested by a significant number of book illustrations, sketches, and paintings (see for instance IG_43, IG_118, IG_149, IG_153, IG_437, IG_443, IG_461), as well as by the replicas of such windows installed in Arab-style interiors across Europe (IG_54–IG_59, IG_64, IG_431, IG_484–IG_487).

The window from the Louvre discussed here differs from most of the other examples, owing to the smaller size of the vase. The quality of the execution of the stucco lattice and the precise depiction of the flowers demonstrate remarkable skill and craftsmanship. The colours and material properties of the glass and the latticework – although heavily restored – suggest that the window dates to the late 19th century. This assumption is supported by the results of an analytical study of glass from two stucco and glass windows from the Louvre collection (OA 7466/7, OA 7466/25) conducted by a team from the Musée du Louvre (Fellinger et al., 2022).

As to its provenance, the window is one of 39 qamariyyāt supposedly bought in Cairo by the architect Ambroise Baudry (1883–1906) for the French civil mining engineer and art collector Baron Alphonse Delort de Gléon (1843–1899) (Bailly et al., 2008, pp. 16–24). They adorned the Ottoman salon of Delort de Gléon’s hôtel particulier, purchased in 1883, at Rue de Vézelay 18 in Paris (Volait, 2005, pp. 131–134; Volait, 2009, pp. 99–104, 130–135). This is confirmed by several historical photographs preserved at the Département des Arts de l’Islam (DAI) of the Musée du Louvre, which show the windows inserted in the upper parts of wooden mashrabiyyāt (see Linked Objects and Images). The salon was designed by the baron himself in collaboration with the French architect Jules Bourgoin (1838–1908). The creation of orientalizing interiors, composed of original architectural elements and furnishings as well as replicas of the same, was a widespread practice among Western art collectors at the time (Giese, 2016; Volait, 2016; Giese, 2019).

Based on these photographs and the presumed date of the windows, one may assume that the windows were created especially for Delort de Gléon’s Arab-style interior and had never been part of a historical building in Cairo. The complete history of these windows however, including possibly multiple reuses and several restorations, is difficult to reconstruct. Based on the unpublished study by Bailly et al. (2008) and our own observations, it seems that most of the windows of this collection have been cut from their wooden frames. Extensive repairs to the stucco grille, as well as the partial or complete replacement of the thin plaster layer for embedding the pieces of glass at the backs of the panels, are proof of several restoration campaigns. It is likely that the light-brown (ochre-coloured) paint on the inside of the stucco grille is not original but was applied around 1922 in preparation for the display of the window in the exhibition rooms of the Louvre, with the intention of adapting the windows to their new surroundings (Bailly et al., 2008, pp. 16–24). The brown varnish applied on top of the paint is probably also the result of a restoration campaign, possibly before the Louvre exhibition in 1977, and may have been applied to match the colour of the wooden mashrabiyya in which the windows were displayed.

After the death of Delort de Gléon, the stucco and glass windows passed into the possession of his wife, Marie Augustine Angélina Delort de Gléon, who bequeathed them – as part of Delort de Gléon’s collection of Islamic art – to the Musée du Louvre in 1912 (Delort de Gléon, 1914).

Datation
late 13th–early 14th centuries AH / late 19th century CE
Période
1880 – 1899
Sites antérieures
Sites liées
Lieu de production

Provenance

Propriétaire

since 1912 Musée du Louvre, Paris

Propriétaire précédent·e
De 1883 (ca.) jusque 1899: Delort de Gléon, Alphonse

Bibliographie et sources

Bibliographie

Bailly, M., Frenkel, N., Gaymay, S., Hamadène, F., Liégey, A., Picur, V., Setton, J. M., & Tréluyer, V. (2008). Rapport d’etude concernant la collection des vitraux [unpublished research report]. Musée du Louvre, Département des arts de l’Islam.

Delort de Gléon, M. A. A. (1914, March 9). Legs de la collection de M. Delort de Gléon (Cote 20144787/17), Archives de musées nationaux (AMN), Archives nationales, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, France.

Giese, F. (2016). From Style Room to Period Room: Henri Moser’s fumoir in Charlottenfels Castle. In: S. Costa, D. Poulot, & M. Volait (Eds.), Period rooms. Allestimenti storici tra arte, gusto e collezionismo: Atti del Convegno Internazionale, Bologna, 18-19 aprile 2016 (pp. 153-160). Bologna: Bolonia University Press.

Giese, F. (2019). International Fashion and Personal Taste: Neo-Islamic Style Rooms and Orientalizing Scenographies in Private Museums. In F. Giese, M. Volait, & A. Varela Braga (Eds.), À l’orientale: Collecting, Displaying and Appropriating Islamic Art and Architecture in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. Arts and Archaeology of the Islamic World, 14 (pp. 92-110). Leiden/Boston: Brill.

Gwenaëlle Fellinger, Carine Juvin, Anne Bouquillon, Mohamed Dallel, Claudine Loisel, Barbara Trichereau, Groupement solidaire Setto, "Éclats de lumière : étude et restauration de vitraux égyptiennes du musée du Louvre", Technè 54, 2022, 114–125.

Mercedes Volait, Fous du Caire. Excentriques, architectes et amateurs d'arts en Égypte (1867–1914), Forcalquier: L'Archange Minotaure, 2009.

Volait, M. (2005). La rue du Caire. In M. Bacha (Ed.). Les Expositions Universelles à Paris, de 1855 à 1937 (pp. 131-134). Paris : Action artistique de la Ville de Paris.

Volait, M. (2016). Les intérieurs orientalistes du comte de Saint-Maurice et d’Albert Goupil: des ‘Cluny arabes’ au Caire et à Paris à la fin du XIXe siècle. In S. Costa, D. Poulot & M. Volait (Eds.), The Period Rooms: Allestimenti storici tra arte, collezionismo e museologia (pp. 103–114). Bononia University Press.

Informations sur l'image

Nom de l'image
FRA_Paris_MuseeDuLouvre_IG_1
Crédits photographiques
© 2012 Musée du Louvre / Raphaël Chipault
Date de la photographie
2012

Objets et images liés

Photographies complémentaires
Paris, Hôtel particulier Delort de Gléon, Ottoman salon

Proposition de citation

Giese, F., & Wolf, S. (2025). Stucco and glass window with flowers in a vase. Dans Vitrosearch. Consulté le 1 juillet 2025 de https://test.vitrosearch.ch/objects/2712845.

Informations sur l’enregistrement

Numéro de référence
IG_1