The Forest

"Behind the abstract image, there is a deep and obscure poetry that I need so much." - Emile​ Gilioli

Influenced by the work of Brancusi, Émile Gilioli (1911-1977) designed, in a strictly non-figurative style, volumes apparently simple, but subtly irregular, curved or sharp-edged. He joined the group of abstract artists of the Denise René gallery, in Paris, where he exhibited in 1948 alongside the greatest sculptors of his time: Arp, Calder, Picasso, Laurens, Giacometti and Vasarely.​

With Émile Gilioli, the first abstract sculptures edited by Baccarat appeared in 1956, one of which was presented two years later at the Brussels International Exhibition.​

This massive sculpture highlights the architectural aspect of the artist's approach to abstraction, which reached a climax with the sculpture Château Fort, where optical games, the reflection in the material, makes the work come alive according to the evolution of the surrounding space.

Artist, designer and architect graduated from the Politecnico of Milan, Roberto Sambonet (1924-1995) designed a line of jewelry for Tiffany and porcelain for Richard Ginori before working for Baccarat as a designer and artistic consultant. His first collaboration with Baccarat came in 1972, when he created Vésuve, a caviar bowl that plays with the apparent lightness of the material and its transparency. ​His pieces are above all the result of an analytical reflection on the use of space, on the link between different pieces of the same set and on the multiple compositions or uses to which they lend themselves.​

These principles were revived when, in 1975, he designed a collection exploring the creative possibilities of crystal, including the Préhistoire vases, four-hemisphere of the same diameter in solid crystal, whose central cavity widens successively from one sculpture to the next. These shapes seem to emerge from the bowels of the earth to materialize in limpid, compact volumes, as if embraced by atmosphere and light.