Wall Lamp Of The Müller Brothers In Luneville

This very elegant wall lamp in multi-layered glass and patinated bronze with floral decoration is signed by the Müller Brothers in Lunéville. It works.

The Muller brothers, founders of the Muller Frères glass factory in Lunéville, are French art glassmakers from the Art Nouveau period and the Art Deco period who marked the renewal of the decorative arts of the 19th century. Their signature is highly sought after today.
The family included nine brothers and one sister. They will all be trained in the glass-working trades at the factories of Saint Louis in Bitche, at Emile Gallé in Nancy, Daum, Sèvres, Baccarat and Meisenthal, thus accumulating a wealth of experience.
The best known are Eugène (1883-1914), Désiré (1877-1952) and Henri (1868-1936).
The Muller de Lunéville brothers took full advantage of the decorative enthusiasm encountered at the end of the 19th century. Alongside Émile Gallé, the Daum brothers and René Lalique, the Muller crystal factory is part of our regional glassmaking history. This large family of ten children knew how to stand out and benefit, in their own way, from their time with the undisputed master of French glassmaking, Émile Gallé.
The older brothers of this family left the Moselle for Nancy in 1894 to be recruited by Emile Gallé, the year in which the latter had his own glass furnaces built in Nancy and recruited workers: the older brothers of the Muller family, Emile, Henri and Désiré are hired as clerks or engravers-decorators on glass.
The elder brothers of the Muller family were trained in glass work at the Saint Louis crystal factory and at the Meisenthal glass factory alongside Désiré Christian.
In 1897, Henri Muller left Émile Gallé, perhaps taking with him manufacturing secrets. He undertakes an association with the glassworks of Croismare. Its production is in direct competition with those of Emile Gallé and the Daum factory. Resentful, Gallé refused to integrate this unfair competition into the “Ecole de Nancy”.
As for Pierre, Désiré, Victor and Eugène, they developed their skills in the Nancy factory and became masters there. Realizing their own productions at the beginning of the 20th century, the Muller brothers were then to be considered as true glass specialists. The "Art Nouveau" production is most often in multi-layered glass (not less than 7 layers) wheel cut or engraved with hydrofluoric acid with naturalistic representations. The most beautiful pieces are finished by fire polishing to give them a beautiful shine.
In 1898, they won the gold medal at the Dijon exhibition. In 1900, a new award was given to them at the Universal Exhibition in Paris.
During the First World War, Emile will be an engraver in Choisy-le-Roi while Auguste, Camille and Jean will be engaged in Sèvres. And in 1919 the family will be reunited in Lunéville and Croismare, where they acquire the Hinzelin ovens to blow their own glassware themselves and will sign "Müller Frères Lunéville". The success will be immediate and the factory will employ up to 300 workers. Following the Great Depression, the Muller company went bankrupt in 1933 and the Croismare factory was bought by Daum, which closed at the end of 1934. In the 1950s, it was transformed into a training center for glass factory.
The art glassworks of the Muller brothers remain rare in museum collections, notably in Nancy, Paris, Düsseldorf, Brussels, Lièges, Norfolk… and are extremely sought after by collectors.

Sources: wikipedia, bladdere-cristaux.fr; leverreetlecrisal.wordpress.com