Henri Cros French Art Nouveau Pâte-de-Verre Mask

Henri Cros pioneered a technique known as pate-de-verre, whereby variously colored glasses are placed in a clay mould and kiln-fired to form a vitreous material, by using the acid of metal oxides. Many of Cros’ moulds are preserved today at the Musée National de Céramique, Sèvres, as it was the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres who had provided Cros a pension and a studio to pursue his research and create his work. His tour de force in this genre is the enormous Apotheosis of Victor Hugo housed in the Maison de Victor Hugo, Paris. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York also has a fine collection of his work. In addition to his importance to glass-making, Cros was a notable painter and sculptor. He trained at L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Paris under the sculptors, François Jouffroy and Antoine Étex and the painter, Jules Valadon. After his Salon debut in Paris in 1861, Cros joined fellow avant-garde artists to show at the anti-establishment Salon des refuses of 1863. He was awarded several medals for his artistic work at l’Exposition Universelle in 1889 and1900 in Paris and was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. In 1905, A.A. Hebrard opened a gallery located at 8 rue Royale in Paris, where they presented sculpture by artists whose work they produced at their foundry. A vestige of the gallery’s ticket, still affixed to the back of the plaque, helps pinpoint that this piece was made just shortly before the artist’s death in 1907. Today, many examples of earthenware fountains and sculpture by Cros can be found in national museums throughout France and private collections.