Bats & Moon Lantern-Form Vase

Object Details

Marks & Inscriptions

Impressed “LACHENAL” within a rectangular cartouche on the underside.

Signed “LACHENAL” in black slip on the lower body.

Provenance

Galerie Fledermaus / Maison Moderne Gallery, Chicago

Literature

Martin Eidelberg, essay, and Claire Cass, catalogue entries, Edmond Lachenal & His Legacy (New York: Jason Jacques Gallery Press, 2007), published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same name, Jason Jacques Gallery, New York, May 18 – July 17, 2007.

Galerie Fledermaus / Maison Moderne Gallery, invoice dated April 28, 2025, describing the work as Edmond Lachenal, “Lantern Vase with Bats & Moon,” c. 1895.

Authorship & Production

Edmond Lachenal (ceramist, French, 1855–1948) at atelier Lachenal (Châtillon, Île-de-France, France).

Commentary

This lantern-form vase is an accomplished synthesis of sculptural modeling, painterly glaze work, and Japoniste design. Conceived as a Japanese paper lantern, or chōchin, the ribbed ovoid body supports a nocturnal tableau: abbreviated pine branches silhouetted against a saturated cobalt sky, a full moon reflected across horizontal bands of water, and three vigorous bats modeled in high relief.

The object functions simultaneously as vessel, image, and sculptural form. Its ribbed body evokes the structure of a paper lantern, while the bats project into space, interrupting the painted surface with animated, three-dimensional presence. The result is not merely a vase decorated with animals, but a nocturnal scene in which animal life, atmosphere, and object form are fused.

The glaze treatment is central to the work’s sophistication. Around 1893, Lachenal introduced what he called émail mat velouté, a technique in which previously glossy areas were selectively dulled through acid etching to produce a soft, velvety matte finish. On this vase, the technique serves the object’s illusionistic purpose. Areas meant to suggest paper or diffused night atmosphere are subdued and absorbent, while selected bands and modeled elements retain greater gloss and density.

The cobalt ground is layered and varied, producing tonal depth rather than flat color. Subtle horizontal striations reinforce the lantern’s ribbed construction. The moon, rendered in opaque white and softened by the matte surface, becomes an atmospheric rather than merely graphic element. The pine needles retain sharper definition, creating a delicately balanced contrast between silhouette, reflection, and night air.

The bats are modeled separately and applied before firing. Their wings extend from the body with unusual energy, each creature seeming to move across the vessel’s surface rather than rest upon it. Their warmer iron-brown glaze and selective gloss give the membranous wings a leathery vitality that contrasts with the cool, atmospheric ground.

The dual signatures are significant. The impressed “LACHENAL” mark within a rectangular cartouche on the underside asserts workshop production and authorship at the level of the ceramic body. The black-slip “LACHENAL” signature on the exterior functions more visibly, integrating the artist’s name into the object’s designed surface. Together, the marks support the work’s status as a deliberate and highly finished product of Lachenal’s mature studio practice.

The lantern motif reflects Lachenal’s sophisticated engagement with Japanese aesthetics rather than superficial borrowing. The pine-and-moon configuration recalls Japanese woodblock compositions, while the bats introduce a note of nocturnal dynamism uncommon in French ceramics of the period. By juxtaposing sculptural animals against a flattened atmospheric ground, Lachenal creates a productive tension between three-dimensional naturalism and stylized landscape.

The object also belongs to a broader Symbolist language of the 1890s. Bats, moonlight, dark water, and silhouetted trees form a vocabulary of transition, mystery, and suspended movement. Lachenal’s interpretation is not gothic or macabre; it is atmospheric, controlled, and quietly theatrical. The bats animate the night without disturbing its stillness.

Related Works

Two closely related lantern-form bat vases by Lachenal were exhibited together at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the exhibition Firing the Imagination: Japanese Influence on French Ceramics, 1860–1910 (Aug. 31, 2024 – Aug. 17, 2025), from the collection of Larry A. Simms. Both share the lantern form and applied bat relief of the present work, though with different painted decoration. One example is catalogued in the PMA’s online collection.

The bat subject connects this vase to two further works in the collection that together demonstrate the range of approaches French Art Nouveau ceramicists brought to the same nocturnal motif. Keller et Guérin’s Chauve-Souris Cachepot (Lunéville, 1895, iridescent luster-glazed stoneware, H 19 cm) deploys three bats in relief on a crackled luster ground — a manufactory production from Lorraine that pursues the same Symbolist subject through an entirely different ceramic tradition: impressed marks, luster chemistry, and stoneware body rather than Lachenal’s painted earthenware and matte glaze. Clément Massier’s monumental bat vase (c. 1900, iridescent luster-glazed earthenware, H 61 cm; on loan to the Art Institute of Chicago, Gallery 244, September 2025–September 2030) presents two bats against a ground of pine needles — the pine subject directly echoing the Lachenal’s own pine tree decoration — at a scale that transforms the nocturnal tableau into something closer to an environmental statement. Where Massier pursues brilliance and scale, Lachenal achieves intimacy and atmospheric depth.

The work should be considered alongside Lachenal’s other animal-themed ceramics, particularly the Tureen from the Sarah Bernhardt Service, where fish, shell, and aquatic ornament are integrated into vessel structure. In both works, animals are not applied as surface decoration alone; they help organize the object’s form and meaning.

Within the Bestiaire, the vase belongs with other nocturnal and Symbolist animal works, including Émile Gallé’s moon-and-moth wall pocket and other pieces in which animal imagery appears within a broader atmospheric or dreamlike setting.

The vase also relates conceptually to Japanese lantern forms and moonlit ukiyo-e compositions, though Lachenal translates these sources into a distinctly French ceramic language through matte glaze, applied relief, and painterly surface modulation.

Image Gallery

Click any tile for fullscreen viewing.

Related Object Records

Bats & Pine Needles Vase

Open record