THE DESIGN ATTRIBUTED TO EMILE REIBER, BY CHRISTOFLE & CIE., PARIS, CIRCA 1880

This vase relates to a large compendium of Emile Reiber's drawings of Chinese and Japanese works from the extensive collection of Henri Cernuschi, the Italian-born financier who amassed over 5,000 objects during his travels abroad between 1871 and 1873. Upon his return, the collection was shown in the Exposition Orientaliste at the Palais de l'Industrie. The exhibition resonated deeply with Paris's burgeoning artist community and Emile Reiber, then the Director of Christofle, spent many days drawing the works of art. Reiber published his drawings in 1877 in Propagande artistique du Musée-Reiber, Le Premier volume des Albums-Reiber, bibliothéque portative des arts du dessin. The emergence of the 'japonisme' movement had started in the 1860s with the import of Japanese works of art following the Meiji restoration. Their exceptional quality led Lucien Falize, another advocate of the Far East, to describe Reiber as the ‘father of Japonisme’.