Antique French Art Nouveau Bronze Jardinière, Holly Model, Signed E. Gros — France, Late 19th Century

The Art Nouveau movement found in the holly plant an almost perfect subject. The leaf — angular, pointed, architecturally assertive — provided the structure that the more flowing plant forms of the style sometimes lacked, while the berries offered the rounded counterpoint that prevented the composition from becoming too hard. The bronziers who worked in the naturalist Art Nouveau manner of the 1890s and early 1900s understood that holly, cast well, could carry an entire object: the leaves becoming the walls of a vessel, the stems its feet, the berries its punctuation.

This jardinière is French, late nineteenth century, signed E. Gros, cast in solid bronze with the warm, slightly varied patina of a piece that has spent over a century in a well-kept interior. The form is an oval basin raised on four small feet, its walls composed of pierced and modelled holly branches — leaves curling outward and inward at the rim, stems crossing and recrossing to form the open lattice of the sides, the whole resolved at front and back into two larger cartouches where the holly composition is worked in higher relief, the leaves layered and undercut with the depth that only a foundry casting from a sculptor's model rather than a mechanical reduction can achieve. The patina is two-toned: warm brass-gold on the flat surfaces and deeper brown in the recesses of the leaf modelling — the natural result of decades of polishing that reaches the high points and leaves the hollows untouched, and the detail that makes the relief read so clearly across the piece.

Whoever kept this jardinière before you gave it a long and careful life. The bronze is sound throughout; the casting is crisp; the piece sits firmly on its four feet. It works as a table centrepiece, a mantelpiece decoration, or a planter for a small succulent or orchid.

It arrives professionally packed and fully insured. All duties and import charges are our responsibility — you pay nothing beyond the listed price. Returns are accepted within 30 days.

DETAILS:
Size: Length 30 cm (11.8 in) · Width 21 cm (8.3 in) · Height 10 cm (3.9 in) — roughly the footprint of a standard laptop
Material: solid bronze, warm two-tone patina
Style/Period: French Art Nouveau, late 19th century — signed E. Gros
Weight: 3.1 kg (6.8 lb)
Shipping: professionally packed, fully insured, worldwide — all import duties paid by us, nothing to settle on delivery
Condition: very good; bronze sound and crisp throughout; patina consistent and attractive; sits firmly on four feet
Returns: accepted within 30 days

Read our condition standard. Please ask if you need additional photographs or measurements.

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Maison Jaspers pays US tariffs and import duties. For other destinations, local import taxes and duties may apply and are payable by the recipient. Contact us before ordering if you need destination-specific guidance.

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Notify us within 30 days of delivery if you wish to return a piece. No reason is required. You pay return shipping for a change-of-mind return.

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