Vase with bats by Hans Stoltenberg Lerche, signed H.S Lerche, dated 1899 and located in Paris.
A major work by the artist, this large vase fully expresses the mysterious and captivating world of the fin-de-siècle spirit. Three bats, sovereign animals of the night with occult symbolism, emerge from the belly of the vase into a starry sky, delicately suggested by the hammering of the metal. The birds seem to fly over the rooftops of Paris, punctuated by telegraph wires, a subtle evocation of a modern city still traversed by shadow and silence. Hans Stoltenberg-Lerche delivers an emblematic work here, in which a fascination with wild and untamed nature confronts the dizzying heights of nascent modernity. This vase stands out as one of the most accomplished expressions of Symbolist Art Nouveau, straddling the line between art object and sculpture.
