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As artistic director of Georges Rouard's furnishings gallery in Paris for more than 40 years, Marcel Goupy saw both Art Nouveau and Art Deco come and go. A talented designer, he produced striking designs for ceramics and silverware during the 1920’s and 1930’s. However, Coupy is most celebrated today for his enameled glassware with brightly colored Art Deco decoration. His tableware and decorative pieces were free–blown from clear or slightly tinted glass and then decorated by hand.

Goupy's enamel glassware often featured images that are considered typically Art Deco, including cypress trees, weeping willows, jazz musicians, stylized flowers, billowing clouds, and cherry blossoms, Glass decorator Auguste Heiligenstein was the man responsible for painting many of these striking designs, even though they bear Goupy's signature.

Heiligenstein went on to enjoy a solo career and won acclaim for his finely detailed enameled and gilt pieces decorated with figures taken from Classical mythology. Many glass designers used enameled decoration during the 1920s and 1930s. Jean Luce produced glassware decorated with highly stylized enamel floral motifs before moving on to engraving and sandblasting geometric designs.

Image. Marcel Goupy, Art Deco Hand–Enamelled Vase, c1928.

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