André Delatte Landscape Lorraine

André DELATTE (1887-1953), glass vase with acid-etched cameo decoration of a lake landscape with large trees. Sign. Height: 15 cm. André Delatte (born in Châtenois in 1887, died in 1953 in Toulouse) is an industrialist, master glassmaker, founder in 1921 of Verreries de l'Est SA whose workshops manufactured artistic glassware of the main brand ADelatte Nancy, in Art Nouveau styles or Art Deco.. Even before his career as a master glassmaker, André Delatte worked in several professions (upholsterer[1], banker[2]). Close to the Muller brothers, glassmakers in Lunéville, he visited their factory and discovered a true vocation for working with artistic glass, particularly chemistry. After studying the techniques, in 1919 he opened his first glass workshop in Nancy, rue du Faubourg des Trois-Maisons, in which he decorated pieces blown by the Muller glassworks. In 1921, André Delatte opened his first oven, a small artistic glass factory Les Verreries de l'Est SA in Jarville, near Nancy[4]. From 1926, buoyed by its success, the factory expanded to Nancy itself, the engraving workshops at 16 rue de Metz[3] and the head office on Quai Ligier Richier. During the same period, while success was achieved, the workforce increased from around thirty to around sixty qualified workers, often simply poached from the competing glassworks Daum. Faced with this intrusion, the Daum house did not remain inactive: in 1922 it responded by filing a lawsuit against the Delatte glassworks for counterfeiting, but the appeal judgment dismissed Daum [5]. It is undeniable that if the two glassworks use the same techniques and the productions are similar, in particular through acid-etched or enameled vases with naturalistic decoration, Delatte creates its own models which have their own style, a " brand". Due to competition with Daum, but above all the great crisis, the factory was the subject of an amicable liquidation in the 1930s[6]. Subsequently, André Delatte, after the closure of his factory in Nancy in 1938, created the company "Art et Verrerie" in Rive-de-Gier, a major glassmaking location - short-lived attempts to resume production; however this new company name Art et verrerie was not crowned with success, and saw the definitive closure of the Delatte establishments