Emile Galle was born in France in 1846 and his training included art, botany, and chemistry, three subjects, which he combined in his brilliant designs for glass and other mediums (pottery, furniture, jewelry). His father, Charles Galle, owned a glass and ceramics factory in Nancy. After much travelling and training, fighting in the war between France and Prussia, working for the glass company "Burgun, Schverer et Cie" in Meisenthal, Galle settled back in Nancy and set up his own glass studio in 1873 where he initially made classical forms of glass with classical, intricate, enamelled designs.

Moving on from these designs to botanical themes, again in enamelled glass, it was not until the 1878 International Exhibition in...