Pair of "Japonisme" Chandeliers by E. Soleau, France circa 1900

Beautiful pair of Japanese chandeliers in patinated bronze, gilded and silvered with five lights. They are composed of three stylized fans, lined with red, pink and orange tinted glass, centered respectively by a seahorse in algae, a spider placed on a web and a dragonfly on leaves, alternating with three arms of light ending in corollas. Branches of flowering cherry trees are scattered throughout. Everything is suspended by three chains connected to a foliage ceiling light ending with a flower.

Biography
Eugène François Alexandre Soleau, born October 3, 1853 in Buenos Aires, Argentina and died July 8, 1929 in Paris, is a French industrialist and inventor. Promoter of the protection of intellectual property, he is the father of the Soleau Envelope, a non-binding and inexpensive French instrument used to prove the anteriority of an intellectual creation. Bronze manufacturer, secretary (1885-1889), then vice-president (from 1895 to 1899) and finally president (from 1900) of the Bronze Manufacturers' Union, he was involved, on a French and international scale, in the protection of intellectual property. Vice-president of the International Association for the Protection of Industrial Property, he participates as a delegate of the Bronze, Jewelry, Jewelry, Goldsmithing, Ceramics, Glassmaking, and of all the plastic arts unions, at the international congresses of industrial property in Vienna (1897), London (1898) and Zurich (1899).

“Japonisme”
From 1853, and the opening of Japan following the intrusion of the US navy, and more precisely from the 1860’s, the enthusiasm of everything coming from Japan or imitating its style conquers numerous occidental countries from France and Britain. This movement, called “Japonism”, will last until the early 20th century. The previous centuries and decades had already had a certain interest for the exoticism such as chinoiseries ou turqueries in the 18th century or the Orientalism of the 19th century. The Japonism movement has been developed by artists looking for new means of expressions. Size, mediums, colours, drawing and perspectives are reinvented. Decorative Arts, as in painting, draw on those new sources of inspiration patterns to renew their repertoire.