Daum Vase Serpent Snake Vase Green Grey 05249-2 | Limited Edition 888 | Pâte de Verre | 22cm | Certificate of Authenticity | Handcrafted Nancy France | Brand New
WHY THIS VASE IS EXTRAORDINARILY SPECIAL
There are crystal vases that are beautiful. There are crystal vases that are technically accomplished. And then there are those works — produced by the world's greatest pâte de verre house in a technique so ancient, so demanding, and so completely irreplaceable that no other manufacturer on earth has ever mastered it to the same level — that achieve something that transcends every category they nominally inhabit.
The Daum Vase Serpent — reference 05249-2, produced in a strictly limited edition of just 888 pieces worldwide, in a luminous combination of green and grey pâte de verre crystal — is one of those works. And the specific creative decision at its heart — to render the snake not as a decorative motif applied to a vase but as the vase itself, the coiling body of the serpent becoming the very form and structure of the vessel — is a decision of genuine artistic genius that produces a result unlike anything else in the contemporary crystal art market.
To understand why this piece carries the significance and the beauty it does, you need to understand two things with the depth they deserve. The name Daum. And the ancient power of the serpent as both subject and symbol.
Maison Daum was established in Nancy, France in 1878 — at the epicenter of the Art Nouveau movement that transformed the decorative arts of the Western world. For nearly one hundred and fifty years the house has remained at the absolute frontier of fine art crystal — producing works held in the permanent collections of the Musée d'Orsay, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Daum is recognized globally as the only crystal manufacturer in the world capable of producing pâte de verre at this level of technical mastery and artistic ambition — a distinction earned through generations of accumulated craft expertise and an uncompromising commitment to the highest possible standard at every stage of every piece.
The pâte de verre technique — an ancient method dating back more than five thousand years to the earliest civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia, rediscovered and perfected by Daum — involves grinding crystal to a fine powder, blending it with mineral pigments to achieve precise colors, packing the resulting paste into molds by hand, and firing it in kilns at carefully controlled temperatures. What emerges is a material unlike anything else in the world of decorative art — neither transparent like blown glass nor opaque like ceramic, but something between and beyond both — possessing inner luminosity, subtle color gradations, and a surface complexity that shifts and transforms in every different light condition. The long body of the snake creates layers that reflect light in different directions, creating different shades of green and grey across the vase as the crystal shines in different hues. Scully and Scully In morning light the piece is one thing. In afternoon sun another. In candlelight something else entirely — always extraordinary, always alive, always rewarding the eye that takes the time to look.
The serpent as vase form is the creative decision that makes this piece genuinely and permanently extraordinary. Most animal crystal sculptures render their subject as a figure sitting on or attached to a base — the animal and the vessel as separate elements in conversation. The Daum Vase Serpent does something entirely different and entirely more ambitious — it makes the snake the vessel itself. The coiling, spiraling body of the serpent, wrapped upon itself in the specific pose of a snake in quiet, alert repose, becomes simultaneously the sculpture and the functional object. The interior of the coiled form becomes the interior of the vase. The exterior scales and surface texture of the serpent's body become the decorative surface of the crystal. The specific quality of the snake's natural resting pose — that combination of contained energy and absolute stillness that makes the snake one of the most psychologically compelling of all animal subjects — becomes the entire visual and sculptural language of the piece.
The green and grey crystal palette achieves in this piece a quality of naturalistic beauty and decorative sophistication simultaneously. The green and grey hue evokes the enchantment of deep forests Daum — bringing to the serpent form the specific color associations of its natural habitat while achieving in the pâte de verre medium a depth and a luminosity that no natural snake could possess. The green shifts and deepens across the layered surface of the coiling body. The grey adds an architectural seriousness and a visual complexity that prevents the palette from being simply decorative. Together they create a color story of extraordinary naturalness and extraordinary sophistication — a palette that works with equal authority in contemporary minimalist interiors and in more traditional decorative environments.
The serpent as subject carries a weight of cultural and symbolic significance that few other animals can approach. In ancient Egypt the serpent was a royal emblem — the uraeus cobra that adorned the pharaoh's crown as a symbol of divine authority and sovereign power. In ancient Greece the serpent was sacred to Apollo, Asclepius, and Athena — associated with wisdom, healing, and the particular quality of intelligence that operates beneath the surface of the observable world. In the cultures of Mesopotamia, India, and the Americas the serpent was associated with creation, with transformation, with the cyclical renewal of life itself. The snake's capacity to shed its skin — to emerge renewed from the old — has made it a universal symbol of transformation, of the capacity to change completely while remaining entirely oneself.
In Daum's pâte de verre this ancient symbol is given a material permanence and a material beauty that its natural counterpart could never achieve — the fluidity and elegance of the serpent's form captured forever in crystal of extraordinary quality, its natural colors translated into green and grey pâte de verre of luminous depth, its ancient symbolic weight preserved and honored in a medium worthy of the significance of the subject.
At 22 centimeters tall and 8.2 inches in diameter, weighing a substantial 12 pounds of finest French pâte de verre, this is a piece of commanding physical presence — the density and the weight of the crystal communicating quality and seriousness before a single detail of the surface has been consciously registered. Its slender structure and graceful curves interact harmoniously with light, creating nuanced transparencies and captivating reflections. Daum
888 pieces. Worldwide. Total. Ever.
THE PÂTE DE VERRE TECHNIQUE — AN ANCIENT ART PERFECTED BY ONE HOUSE
The Snake Vase is created using the rare and ancient pâte de verre technique, which dates back to 5,000 BC. It involves melting many fragments of colored crystal within a mold, resulting in intense colors against a subtly shaded background. Amazon At Daum, this process is applied with a level of technical sophistication and artistic intelligence that the house has accumulated across nearly one hundred and fifty years of continuous refinement. Pâte de cristal has the quality of giving translucency to the forms it reproduces. The brilliance of this material, the intensity of colors and the myriad subtle shades all contribute to its singularity. ShopTheAddison
Today, Daum is the only glass maker in the world able to produce this exceptional material so perfectly. Hickmet That distinction — earned through generations of accumulated expertise and an absolute refusal to compromise on quality at any stage of production — is the foundation of the authority that the Daum name carries in the global fine art crystal market.
Product Details
Brand: Daum France
Piece: Vase Serpent — Snake Vase
Reference: 05249-2
Edition: Strictly Limited to 888 Pieces Worldwide
Material: Pâte de Verre — Fine French Crystal Glass Paste
Color: Green and Grey
Documentation: Certificate of Authenticity — Each piece signed Daum France
Packaging: Thermoformed Daum Presentation Case
Origin: Handcrafted in Nancy, France
Condition: Brand New
Dimensions and Weight
Height: 22 cm / 8.6 inches
Length: 21 cm / 8.2 inches
Width: 21 cm / 8.2 inches
Weight: 12 lb / 5.4 kg
The Snake as Form — Where Nature Becomes Architecture
The specific creative achievement of the Daum Vase Serpent is the complete integration of subject and object — the snake is not depicted on the vase but is the vase. This integration demands a level of sculptural intelligence and a level of technical mastery that only a house with Daum's accumulated expertise could bring to bear consistently. The multilayered structure creates a specific texture for the vase, which allows the piece to stand out in any interior home design. Scully and Scully
The result is a piece that functions simultaneously as fine art sculpture, as functional decorative vessel, as cultural and symbolic statement, and as a demonstration of pâte de verre mastery at the absolute highest level of the craft. It is the rare kind of object that rewards being encountered repeatedly — that reveals new aspects of its beauty, its complexity, and its craftsmanship with every different light condition and every different angle of viewing.
Who This Piece Is Perfect For
This vase is the ideal acquisition for serious Daum France collectors building a comprehensive collection of the house's finest and most creatively ambitious animal subject pieces, lovers of the serpent as a cultural and symbolic subject who wish to own the most beautiful, the most technically accomplished, and the most artistically imaginative fine art crystal expression of this ancient and profoundly significant symbol, interior designers and architects sourcing a statement decorative object of genuine design intelligence, commanding physical presence, and the specific quality of naturalistic color and organic form that the green and grey snake vase provides for contemporary and traditional luxury interiors alike, serious investors in fine art crystal seeking a limited edition of 888 pieces from one of the world's most institutionally prestigious crystal houses in a piece whose combination of creative originality, technical achievement, and genuine symbolic depth creates a compelling long-term collector profile, luxury gift buyers searching for something genuinely extraordinary and genuinely memorable for a significant occasion — a piece whose subject carries universal symbolic resonance and whose execution demonstrates the highest level of French fine art crystal mastery, and anyone who has encountered the Daum Vase Serpent and felt immediately the specific quality of fascination and beauty that only the most completely realized and the most genuinely original fine art crystal can produce.
Condition and Packaging
Brand new. In original thermoformed Daum presentation case. Each piece signed Daum France. Certificate of Authenticity included. Individual piece from strictly limited worldwide edition of 888. Reference 05249-2. Handcrafted in Nancy, France. Pâte de verre crystal glass paste in green and grey. Professionally packed for safe worldwide shipping of a piece weighing 12 pounds.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)