La vague, rare porcelain bas-relief by Alexandre Charpentier, monogrammed lower right, Sèvres stamp lower left.
La vague was one of the decorative elements designed for the bathroom in decorator Henri Jansen's store on Rue Royale in Paris in 1903. Initially executed in pâte de verre by Georges Despret, the piece was part of a joint project by Alexandre Charpentier, Henri Sauvage and Charles Sarazin, Francis Jourdain and Alexandre Bigot.
Despret and Charpentier worked closely together to achieve a luminous, translucent result in which colors harmonize. The bathroom received critical acclaim, notably in the 1905 issue of L'Art Décoratif.
Alexandre Charpentier never hesitated to reuse his creations in other contexts: these bathers were presented at the French Room of the Venice Biennale in 1905, and were produced in bronze or, as in the example shown here, in porcelain by the Manufacture de Sèvres.
