Ashtray

This design for an ashtray was designed by Gabriel Argy-Rousseau (born Joseph-Gabriel Rousseau; 1885-1953) and manufactured using a technique known as pâte de verre or ‘glass paste’. Using this process, finely crushed glass bound with gum arabic is applied as a paste to the inside of a ceramic mould and fired in a kiln. Oxides and metal salts can be added to the powdered glass to produce different colours in the firing.

Clear pâte de verre, streaked with blue, has been cast in the shape of a flower head. The thick rim of this shallow vessel is formed from two rows of overlapping petals, reflecting the influence of nature on Art Nouveau design. This stylised open flower sits upon a raised circular foot and is incised with the maker’s mark ‘G. Argy Rousseau’ on the side of the dish.

The pâte de verre technique developed from Roman frit casting that used moulds and chips of glass. It is likely that Argy-Rousseau first modelled the bowl form in plaster and clay before developing the moulds needed to cast a positive model in wax. This piece of kiln-fired glass relied on the lost wax casting method to create a cavity within a refractory ceramic material. Once the wax had drained out, glass paste was applied to the walls of the cavity and fired. [1]

From 1902-1906, Argy-Rousseau studied at the Ecole Nationale de Céramique at Sèvres where he earned a diploma in ceramic engineering. [2] During this period, Argy-Rousseau’s classmate Jean Cros introduced him to mould-cast glass production [3]. Jean Cros was the son of César-Isidore-Henri Cros (1840-1907) who had rediscovered the pâte de verre technique in 1893 and developed his own method for kiln-firing powdered glass in clay moulds [4].

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