AMALRIC WALTER (1870-1959) Animal sculpture representing... Lot 26

AMALRIC WALTER (1870-1959) Animal sculpture representing an ermine in pale yellow translucent glass paste on a light brown and green rectangular base by Amalric Walter with the collaboration of Henri Bergé. Signatures engraved on the base: A WALTER NANCY and hBergé Sc. circa 1920. Dimensions: Height: 10.5 cm; Length: 25 cm; Depth: 9 cm. From this exceptional collaboration with Henri Bergé (1870-1937), a talented draftsman and a great lover of nature, a production of animal statuettes was born, full of realism, as shown in our sculpture, very expressive, as if taken from life. We know very few copies at the moment: a model very close to the same period is kept in the Broadfield House Glass Museum (Kingswinford), Dudley Museum in England (see illustration n°39 page 30 of Keith Richard Cummings' book) and another model, "The ermine, ringer with ermine tasting the eggs of a nest", executed around 1910 and signed Daum NANCY with a Lorraine cross * is in the Fine Arts Museum of Nancy (see illustration page 54 of François Le Tacon & Jean Hurstel's book). It should also be noted that an ermine very similar to ours was sold at auction at Christie's in London on 27 October 1998 under No. 280 for the then very large sum of GBP 10580. *During the Daum period (1903-1918), almost all the glass pastes executed by Amalric Walter are signed DAUM NANCY with the cross of Lorraine. For the coins co-signed hBergé sc, it is probably Henri Bergé who was the modeler. The meaning of the acronym Sc, which quite often follows the signatures of Walter and Bergé, would correspond to the initials of Schneider Charles or would mean Sculptit. Bibliography: Cummings Keith Richard, Amalric Walter (1870-1959), Broadfield House Glass Museum (Kingswinford), 2006, p.30. Le Tacon François and Hurstel Jean, Amalric Walter: Maître de la pâte de verre, Editions Serpenoise, 2013, p.54, 135 and 136.