a french ormolu-mounted ouraline crystal casket

A fine trapézoïdale ouraline cut-crystal casket with its key and ormolu mounts, adorned with fine nervures, wave-like decoration on the body and a radiant pattern atop. The gilt bronze base is richly decorated with volutes and foliages in the Rocaille style, fashionable under Napoleon III. On each side, it terminates with four shells shaped feet. The superior frame in neo-Gothic style testifies of the voque of the eclecticism in that time, a mouvement that skillfully mix various styles of the past.

  The term "ouraline" indicates a glass or crystal object of yellow color with green reflections. This property to present different colorings according to the orientation of the object is due to the oxide of uranium, the urane, a very particular element discovered by the German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth (1743-1817) in 1789. The Anonyme society of glasshouses gathered by Vallerysthal and by Portieux and the crystal glass factory of Clichy qualified as " dichroïde " this surprising color. Nevertheless, there are green, blue, amber and pink uranifères glasses. The range of greens is the most spread from the almost imperceptible green to the darkest green; the famous "chrysoprase" created by the crystal glass factory of Baccarat was baptized so because of its color calling back that of the green chalcedony. The ouraline was used for a long time to the manufacturing of dishes and trinkets and its use goes back up to the Antiquity. After the discovery of Klaproth and its experiments in the glass coloring, the ouraline spread from the second half of the 19th century. The first important producer of ouraline objects was Josef Riedel whose glass factory of Dolni Polubny in Bohemia prospered between 1830 and 1848. From 1840s, numerous European glass factories produced objects in ouraline and new varieties were created. After a golden age between 1880 and 1920, its use became rarer when its use in the industry decreased because of the Cold War.  
Circa :1880
Dim: W: 5,5 in - D: 3,5in - H: 6,3in.
Dim: L:14cm, P:9cm, H:16cm.

Antiques.co.uk Ref: QEHURKA9

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