Important Animal Sculpture In Glass Paste By Daum France: *the Lyre Bird* By Claude Lhoste

A beautiful decorative glass paste sculpture depicting a stylized lyrebird, rendered in a style that blends animal, plant, and Art Nouveau elements. The work combines the bird’s rounded body with a large, fan-like plumage, whose lines evoke both the lyrebird’s spectacular feathers and plant-like palms, leaves, or corollas.

The composition is particularly elegant: the bird’s body, with its full, smooth, and sensual forms, rises toward a large, finely modeled vertical tail. The head, rendered in deeper amber tones, immediately catches the eye. The upward-pointing beak lends the piece a beautiful upward momentum, as if the bird were riding the surge of its own plumage.

The upper section is highly decorative, featuring relief work of veins, grooves, leaves, and radiating patterns. The two large, curved, upward-rising forms on the sides evoke the bird’s characteristic lyre-shaped feathers. The central motif, with a more botanical feel, gives the piece an organic presence, straddling the line between animal, plant, and decorative sculpture.

The pâte de verre displays beautiful craftsmanship, with a satin finish that is slightly grainy in places—a characteristic of this technique. The colors blend throughout the piece: amber yellow, honey, and orange-brown for the body and head, followed by blue-gray, aqua green, and milky shades in the plumage. The edges of the design are accented with golden yellow highlights that enhance the piece’s overall luminosity.

The material plays with opacity and translucency. Thicker areas take on a more milky, mineral-like quality, while the thinner sections capture more light. The transitions between yellow, blue, and green are smooth and natural, giving this sculpture a refined, luminous, and highly decorative presence.

Claude Lhoste is a French animal sculptor known in particular for his works produced by Daum. The CNAP notes that Lhoste, who was born and lived near the Vincennes Zoo, began his career by sculpting a parrot, which sheds light on his enduring interest in the animal world. His collaboration with Daum is generally dated to the late 1960s; several specialized sources mention his early creations for the company, including a flying owl, a bull, and a cat. His work is characterized by the observation of living creatures, the stylization of natural forms, and a quest for balance between animal power, decorative elegance, and organic abstraction.

The “L’Oiseau lyre” model is fully in keeping with this style: the animal is not depicted in a naturalistic manner, but transformed into a fluid, almost plant-like decorative sculpture. The subject becomes a pretext for an interplay of curves, transparencies, and volumes. The piece evokes both 20th-century French animal art and Daum’s decorative heritage, as well as the Art Nouveau taste for natural forms.

Condition: in good overall condition based on the photos. Includes its gilt-bronze presentation plaque

A stunning decorative piece, ideal for a Daum collection, a pâte de verre collection, or a contemporary, Art Deco, or Art Nouveau interior.

Dimensions: height 36 cm, width 22 cm, depth 15 cm.

Signed “Lhoste” and “Daum” on the base.