Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-t5pn6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T00:37:43.863Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Art Nouveau and Bank Architecture in Nancy: Negotiating the Re-Emergence of a French Regional Identity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 December 2020

Abstract

Art nouveau design is one of the principal markers of the identity of the French city of Nancy, which became internationally renowned as one of the most important centres for the development of this artistic style around 1900. Like other strands of the style, especially in Spain, Germany and parts of the Austro-Hungarian empire, art nouveau in eastern France has been linked to long-standing regionalist sentiments that resisted centralised Parisian control over local affairs typical in nineteenth-century France. This article examines the evolving bank architecture in central Nancy, a major facet of the introduction of art nouveau in its urban environment, to show that the construction of the city's modern character was a negotiated process that involved careful planning among financial institutions, architects and decorative artists. The design and erection of modern banks in Nancy in the first decade of the twentieth century balanced generalised architectural principles emanating from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris with the employment of highly symbolic regional naturalist motifs and architectural elements. This strategy fulfilled a variety of communicative functions to appeal to a civic populace whose identity was multivalent and shifting with the era's political climate, particularly with regard to the nearby ‘lost provinces’ of Alsace-Lorraine in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian war.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

1 See Corbin, Alain, ‘Paris — Province’, in Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past, Volume I — Conflicts and Divisions, ed. Nora, Pierre and Kritzman, Lawrence D., trans. Goldhammer, Arthur (New York, 1996), pp. 427–64Google Scholar. Characteristic of such trends were the funds for Parisian improvements for the five expositions universelles that the capital regularly hosted between 1855 and 1900, borne largely at the expense of the rest of the nation.

2 See Wright, Julian, The Regionalist Movement in France 1890–1914: Jean Charles-Brun and French Political Thought (Oxford, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also Palmaerts, Geert, ‘Nineteenth-Century Regionalism and the Idea of Decentralisation in the Arts’, in Sources of Regionalism in the Nineteenth Century: Architecture, Art and Literature, ed. van, Linda Santvoort, Jan De Maeyer and Tom Verschaffel (Leuven, 2008), pp. 5455Google Scholar.

3 ‘Conseil à mon fils sur l'Art Nouveau’, in Joachim Malézieux, Vermiculures, à l'usage des architectes (St Quentin, 1900), pp. 84–85; Paul Greenhalgh, ‘The Style and the Age’ and ‘Alternative Histories’, in Art Nouveau, 1890–1914, ed. Paul Greenhalgh (London, 2000), pp. 14–33 and 36–45; and Frank Russell, ed., Art Nouveau Architecture (London, 1979).

4 Meredith L. Clausen, Frantz Jourdain and the Samaritaine: Art Nouveau Theory and Criticism (Leiden, 1987); Vanessa Schwartz, Spectacular Realities: Early Mass Culture in Fin-de-Siècle Paris (London, 1998); Claire Aptel and others, Nancy 1900: Rayonnement de l'Art Nouveau (Thionville, 1991); and Françoise-Thérèse Charpentier and others, Art Nouveau: L’École de Nancy (Metz, 1987).

5 Émile Gallé and others, École de Nancy: Statuts (Nancy, 1901), p. 1; Émile Hinzelin, ‘L'Art en Lorraine’, Idées Modernes, 3: Nancy et Lorraine (July 1909), pp. 177–200 (pp. 196, 199–200); and Christian Debize, trans. Ruth Atkin-Etienne, Émile Gallé and the ‘École de Nancy’ (Metz, 1999).

6 See Vincent B. Canizaro, ed., Architectural Regionalism: Collected Writings on Place, Identity, Modernity, and Tradition (Princeton, NJ, 2007).

7 See Robert Gildea, The Past in French History (London, 1994), p. 170; Jean-François Thull, ‘La Contribution de Prosper Guerrier de Dumast à l’émergence du lotharingisme à Nancy (1830–1840)’, Le Pays Lorrain, 88 (2007), pp. 17378; and Richard Thomson, ‘Regionalism versus Nationalism in French Visual Culture, 18891900: The Cases of Nancy and Toulouse’, in Nationalism and French Visual Culture, 1870–1914, ed. June Hargrove and Neil McWilliam (New Haven, CT, 2005), pp. 20924. On Napoleon III's improvements, see David Pinckney, Napoleon III and the Rebuilding of Paris (Princeton, NJ, 1958).

8 One such writer was a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts. See Jean-Louis Pascal, ‘Exposition Universelle de Vienne’, Revue générale de l'architecture et des travaux publics, 30 (1873), p. 203. Graham Robb, The Discovery of France (London, 2007).

9 Such publications even drew the attention of Americans such as Richard Morris Hunt. See Sarah Bradford Landau, ‘Richard Morris Hunt, the Continental Picturesque, and the Stick Style’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 42 (1983), pp. 272–89 (pp. 275–80). On Daly, see Yves Schoonjans, ‘Regional Architecture as an Element of Cosmopolitanism in César Daly's Vision of Eclecticism’, in Sources of Regionalism, ed. Santvoort, De Maeyer and Verschaffel, pp. 32–47; and Marc Saboya, ‘César Daly (1811–1894)’, Monuments Historiques, 180 (1992), pp. 53–56.

10 On the École des Beaux-Arts, see Richard Chafee, ‘The Teaching of Architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts’, and David Van Zanten, ‘Architectural Composition at the École des Beaux-Arts from Charles Percier to Charles Garnier’, in The Architecture of the École des Beaux-Arts, ed. Arthur Drexler (New York and Cambridge, MA, 1977), pp. 61110 and 111324.

11 Julien Guadet, Éléments et théorie de l'architecture, 4 vols (Paris, 190104).

12 Maurice Culot, ed., Le Siècle de l'eclectisme: Lille 1830–1930 (Brussels, 1979), esp. François Loyer, ‘Ornement et caractère’, pp. 65–104.

13 Bernard Toulier, ‘L'Assimilation du régionalisme dans L'Architecture balnéaire’, in Le Régionalisme, architecture et identité, ed. Bernard Toulier and Francois Loyer (Paris, 2001), pp. 96–103.

14 Charles Plumet, ‘L'Architecture et le paysage’, L'Art et les artistes, 5 (1907), pp. 228–31; and Jean-Claude Vigato, L'Architecture régionaliste: France 1890–1950 (Paris, 1994), pp. 4356.

15 Debora Silverman, Art Nouveau in Fin-de-Siècle France: Politics, Psychology and Style (London, 1989); and Nancy Troy, Modernism and the Decorative Arts in France: Art Nouveau to Le Corbusier (London, 1991).

16 Clausen, Frantz Jourdain; Edmond Delaire, Les Architectes élèves à l’École des Beaux-Arts, 1793–1907, 2nd edn (Paris, 1907), pp. 286–87, 303–04, 314.

17 Jean Micque, ‘Un succès pour Nancy’, L'Immeuble et la construction dans l'Est [hereafter ICE], 3 (1889), pp. 138–39; O. de Fontaine, ‘M. Lucien Veissemburger’ [sic], ICE, 1 (1888), pp. 281–82; and Christian Debize, ‘Architecture: Rationalisme et styles’, in Art Nouveau: L’École de Nancy, ed. Charpentier, pp. 217–49.

18 Formerly the king of Poland, Stanisław became Lorraine's ruler in 1736 after the war of Polish succession. On his death, Lorraine became French territory as the throne passed to his son-in-law, Louis XV of France. See René Taveneaux, ‘De Stanislas à la Révolution (1737–1789)’, in Histoire de Nancy, ed. Taveneaux (Toulouse, 1978), pp. 293–302; and Alexandre Gady and Jean-Marie Pérouse de Motclos, ed., De l'esprit des villes: Nancy et l'Europe urbaine au siècle des Lumières, 1720–1770 (Versailles, 2005).

19 Émile Badel, ‘Le Roi Stanislas à Nancy en 1907: Chapitre XIII — Où l'on voit le roi Stanislas visiter les ateliers de nos bons artistes lorrains’, ICE, 25 (1907), pp. 26–28; and André Hallays, Nos villes d'art célèbres: Nancy (Paris, 1908), pp. 123–35.

20 Gildea, Past in French History, pp. 174–75, and Odette Voilliard, ‘Autour du Programme de Nancy’, in Régions et régionalisme en France du XVIIIe siècle à nos jours, ed. Christian Gras and Georges Livet (Paris, 1977), pp. 287–302. See also Comité de Nancy, Un projet de decentralisation (Nancy, 1865), pp. 2, 11, 15, 65.

21 See Pierre Barral and others, ‘La Capitale de la Lorraine mutilée (1871–1918)’, in Histoire de Nancy, ed. Taveneaux, pp. 375–430 (p. 393).

22 This was a preoccupation for nationalists such as Gallé and Maurice Barrès. See Edward Teutsch, ‘L'Annexation d'Alsace-Lorraine’, L'Impartial de l'Est, 56 (1894), pp. 1–2; Émile Badel, ‘Le Monument du « Souvenir »’, ICE, 28 (1910), p. 433; and Jessica Dandona, Nature and the Nation: The Art of Émile Gallé and the École de Nancy (New York, 2017), pp. 7–54.

23 Catherine Coley, La Salle Poirel: Albert Jasson, architecte (Nancy, 1989), pp. 4–5, 12–13, 24–37, 48; Catherine Coley, ‘Les Magasins Réunis: Une réalisation architecturale exemplaire avant la première guerre’, Le Pays Lorrain, 81 (2000), pp. 83–94; and Roselyne Bouvier and others, Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie de Meurthe-et-Moselle (Nancy, 1999).

24 Christian Debize's Guide l’École de Nancy (Nancy, 1993) lists most of the major buildings, although numerous smaller structures remain uncatalogued by any source.

25 Nikolaus Pevsner, A History of Building Types, Bollingen Series 25, vol. 19 (Princeton, NJ, 1976), p. 206. ‘Caisse d’épargne’ literally translates as ‘savings bank’.

26 For example, when Édouard-Jules Corroyer embarked on the commission for the new headquarters of the Comptoir national d'escompte de Paris (CNEP) in 1880, he expressed a primary concern for the ‘art national’ that he was responsible for promulgating. See Corroyer, L'Architecture gothique (Paris, 1891), p. 5; and Philippe Sorel, ‘Corroyer et les décors du Comptoir d'escompte de Paris’, in Jean-François Pinchon and others, Les Palais d'argent: L'Architecture bancaire en France, 1830–1930 (Paris, 1992), p. 137.

27 Hubert Bonin, ‘La Révolution des banques françaises (1850–1930)’, in Pinchon and others, Les Palais d'argent, pp. 13–41 (pp. 24–33).

28 Delaire, Les Architectes élèves, pp. 135–39. Such programmes were also used for the contests of 1788 and 1810, but no Prix de Rome competitions after 1899.

29 Guadet, Éléments, II, pp. 413–24; L. Max, ‘Les Banques modernes’, ICE, 26 (1908), pp. 257–58; and Hélène Sicard-Lenattier, Les Alsaciens-Lorrains à Nancy, 1870–1914: Une ardent histoire (Haroué, 2002), p. 145. The journal L'Immeuble et la construction dans l'Est was founded in 1887 and edited by the architects Émile Jacquemin and Lucien Humbert. They were succeeded in 1907 by the art and literary critic Émile Badel, a keen advocate of art nouveau. It ceased publication in 1935.

30 On classicism as the entrenched style at the École, see Neil Levine, ‘The Romantic Ideal of Architectural Legibility: Henri Labrouste and the Néo-Grec’, and Chafee, ‘Teaching of Architecture’, in Architecture of the École des Beaux-Arts, ed. Drexler, pp. 358–63 and 87–88. There were a few other exceptions to the rule of classicism in French banks: Flemish-Renaissance models in the northern départements, and a few architects, influenced by Viollet-le-Duc, adopted Gothic. Bonin, ‘Révolution des banques françaises’, pp. 66–71.

31 Anne-Hélène Brunterc'h and Pascal Penot, Hôtel des Italiens, Paris (Paris, 2012), p. 12; and Bonin, ‘Révolution des banques françaises’, pp. 44–47.

32 Max, ‘Les Banques modernes’, p. 258.

33 Letter from Baron Brincard to André Madinier, 13 February 1925 (Paris, Archives of the Crédit Lyonnais, 112 AH 3). The Crédit Lyonnais archives (now held by Crédit Agricole) contain no records pertaining to the construction of any of its locations except the main offices in Paris and Lyons; virtually all discussions regarding the design processes are understood to have taken place verbally. See Annie Jacques, ‘La Politique architecturale du Crédit Lyonnais’, in Le Crédit Lyonnais 1863–1986, ed. Bernard Desjardins and others (Geneva, 2003), pp. 193–209 (p. 194).

34 Delaire, Les Architectes élèves, p. 207. For the 1900 exposition, see Richard D. Mandell, Paris 1900: The Great World's Fair (Toronto, 1967). Entering students at the École could choose which atelier they would join to complete their student work. See Chafee, ‘The Teaching of Architecture’, pp. 61–109.

35 Such practices were reinforced by French histories of architecture written before the Second World War, which mention provincial buildings only as derivative of trends in Paris. See Georges Gromort, ‘Architecture’, in Georges Gromort, André Fontainas and Louis Vauxcelles, L'Architecture et la sculpture en France de la Revolution à nos jours (Paris, 1922), n.p.; and David Van Zanten, Building Paris: Architectural Institutions and the Transformations of the French Capital, 1830–1870 (Cambridge, 1994), p. 48. The Nancy building occupied a double plot, but only the western half occupied by the main banking facilities was given an architecturally prominent façade.

36 Notably in Jacopo Sansovino's Venetian Zecca (1536–48) and Antonio da Sangallo's Papal Mint in Rome (1513–21).

37 Narjoux later highly recommended the monogram as a standard distinguishing feature on the façades of the bank's various branches. See André-Félix Narjoux, ‘Note sur la construction et la decoration des agences, juillet 1924’ (Archives of the Crédit Lyonnais, 112 AH 3).

38 On Gruber's stained glass, see René d'Avril, ‘Les Vitraux de Jacques Gruber’, La Revue Lorraine Illustrée, 7 (1912), pp. 41–48; Louis Lumet, ‘Un décorateur nancéen: Jacques Gruber’, L'Art décoratif, 11 (1909), pp. 161–67; Jacques-Louis Vallières, ‘Jacques Gruber, le régénérateur du vitrail’, La Vie en Alsace, 14 (1936), pp. 6–12; and Françoise Dierkens-Aubry and others, Jacques Gruber, ebéniste et maître-verrier, 1871–1936 (Brussels, 1983).

39 Émile Jacquemin, ‘Le Plafond en vitrail du Crédit Lyonnais’, in ICE, 17 (1902), pp. 402–03; Maurice Pillard-Verneuil, Dictionnaire des symboles, emblèmes, et attributs (Paris, 1897), p. 42.

40 Émile Jacquemin, ‘L'Art de la rue’, ICE, 16 (1901), p. 347; Émile Jacquemin, ‘Quelques constructions du centre’, ICE, 17 (1901), p. 58; and Pierre Duroc (pseudonym of Émile Badel), ‘Les Nouvelles Devantures’, ICE, 17 (1901), p. 217. Also see Émile Nicolas, ‘Les Vitraux de M. Jacques Gruber’, La Lorraine Artiste, 21 (1903), pp. 232–33; and S., ‘Meubles de J. Gruber’, La Lorraine Artiste, 19 (1901) pp. 9–13, 99–100.

41 Émile Gallé, ‘Le Mobilier contemporain orné d'après la nature’, Revue des arts décoratifs (1900), reprinted in Émile Gallé, Écrits pour l'art: Floriculture, art décoratif, notices d'exposition (1884–1889) (Paris, 1908), pp. 246–47. The rooting of structure in nature was especially important for Marc-Antoine Laugier, as illustrated by the frontispiece to the 1755 edition of his Essai sur l'architecture.

42 See H. C., ‘Les Devantures de magasins’, ICE, 28 (1910), p. 193; and L. Max, ‘Devantures et étalages’, ICE, 27 (1910), p. 665.

43 Hortus, ‘M. le Docteur Henri Aimé: Président de nombreuses sociétés, candidat à la deputation’, Le Cri de Nancy, 2 (1909), p. 208; Raoul Wagner, Dictionnaire biographique illustré de Meurthe-et-Moselle (Paris, 1910), p. 6; Delaire, Les Architectes élèves, p. 181.

44 Émile Nicolas, ‘Eugène Vallin et son oeuvre’, La Lorraine Artiste, 22 (1904), pp. 257–75; Frédéric Descouturelle, Eugène Vallin: Menusier d'art ou artiste industriel (1856–1922) (Nancy, 1998).

45 Émile Jacquemin, ‘Quelques constructions du centre’, ICE, 17 (1901), p. 58; and Émile Badel, ‘La Construction moderne en Lorraine: IV. Nancy-Nouveau’, ICE, 26 (1908), p. 147.

46 Biet's early plans of the ground floor with these spaces clearly marked, and the division of apartments on the upper floors, date from 20 May 1902 and are conserved at the Service Régional Inventaire, Nancy.

47 Pillard-Verneuil, Dictionnaire, p. 135; and Hubert Bonin, ‘Une architecture spécifique’, in Pinchon and others, Les Palais d'argent, pp. 43–104, (p. 80).

48 See Bonin, ‘Une architecture spécifique’, pp. 74, 75, 80.

49 The others were the Société Nancienne de Crédit (now part of CIC), Banque de Nancy, and Banque de l'Alsace et de Lorraine: Seeing Nancy: A Guide for Americans, with map (Nancy, 1918), pp. 6, 40.

50 Émile Badel, Nancy: Nouveau guide complet (Nancy, 1914), pp. 21–22; and Barral and others, ‘La Capitale de la Lorraine mutilée (1871–1918)’, pp. 408–09.

51 ‘Banque Renauld et Cie’, Revue industrielle de l'Est, 17 (1908), p. 646. Also Francis Roussel, Nancy Architecture 1900, 3 vols (Metz, 1992), I, p. 50.

52 See Jean Micque (pseudonym of Émile Jacquemin), ‘Béton et ciment armé’, ICE, 11 (1896), pp. 165–67, and ‘Les Carrières d'Euville’, ICE, 1 (1887), pp. 12–13.

53 For the Italian quattrocento as a pivotal period in banking history, see Raymond de Roover, The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank (Cambridge, MA, 1963) and Richard S. Goldthwaite, ‘The Medici Bank and the World of Florentine Capitalism’, Past and Present, 114 (1987), pp. 3–31.

54 ‘Imprimerie et Librarie Berger-Levrault’, Revue industrielle de l'Est, 19 (1910), p. 853.

55 ‘Bourse de Commerce’, Revue industrielle de l'Est, 13 (1904), pp. 304–05. Antonin Daum was married to Marguerite Didion, sister of Renauld's wife Marie, and his brother Auguste Daum served as the secretary of Renauld's board of directors: Marc Pernot and Pierre Lescanne (grandson of Auguste Daum), pers. comm., 26 and 27 June 2006. Also see ‘Banque de MM. Renauld & Cie.’, Revue industrielle de l'Est, 10 (1901), p. 1; and ‘Obsèques de M. Auguste Daum’, L'Est Républicain, 4 April 1909, p. 2.

56 On this structure, see Bouvier and others, Chambre de Commerce.

57 Émile Nicolas, ‘L'Art décoratif à l'Exposition’, L’Étoile de l'Est, 12 July 1909, p. 2. The models bore André's name and that of a Mr Cayotte, their builder, but not Charbonnier's.

58 Now conserved in the Musée de l’École de Nancy, Centre de Documentation, Fonds André, along with several other such drawings gifted between the city's architects.

59 For André, see Hervé Doucet, Émile André: Art Nouveau et modernités (Arles, 2011); Delaire, Les Architectes élèves, p. 46; Liste des ouvrages donnés par Jean-Luc André le 7 août 2002 and Liste des ouvrages donnés par Jean-Luc André le 10 septembre 2002 (unpublished typescripts, Musée de l’École de Nancy, Centre de Documentation). For Charbonnier, see Delaire, Les Architectes élèves, p. 210; Émile Badel, ‘Chez Nos Architectes: M. Paul Charbonnier’, ICE, 35 (1923), pp. 5–6; and G. S., ‘L'Exposition de la Maison d'Art Lorraine’, La Lorraine Artiste, 18 (1900), p. 159. The primacy of the plan and spatial arrangement was a hallmark of Laloux's teaching: ‘Hommage à Laloux de ses élèves américains’, Pencil Points, 18 (1937), pp. 621–30.

60 Émile Badel, ‘Le Nouvel Immeuble de la Banque Renauld’, ICE, 28 (1910), pp. 267, 269; ‘Banque Renauld et Cie’, L'Est Républicain, 10 July 1910, p. 501; Émile Badel, ‘La Futur Banque Renauld’, ICE, 25 (1907), p. 107.

61 Badel, ‘Le Nouvel Immeuble’, p. 269.

62 Émile Badel, ‘Les Transformations de la rue Saint-Jean à Nancy’, ICE, 25 (1907), p. 210; Émile Badel, ‘Les Transformations de la rue St Jean’, ICE, 35 (1923), [n.p.]. Also Louis-Charles Boileau, ‘Société centrale des architectes français: Rapport du jury des récompenses’, L'Architecture, 15 (1902), pp. 185–88 (p. 187); and Hallays, Nos villes d'art, pp. 124–25.

63 Conserved in the Archives départementales de Meurthe-et-Moselle [hereafter ADMM], Fonds André, 119 J 661.

64 None, however, appears to be a German model from Nuremberg, as speculated by Badel in ‘Le Nouvel Immeuble’, p. 267.

65 On Cordonnier, see Olivier Liardet, ‘Un palais néo-régionaliste pour une grande institution: La Construction de la nouvelle bourse de commerce de Lille par Louis-Marie Cordonnier (1906–1920)’, Livraisons d'histoire de l'architecture, 15 (2008), pp. 1–22 (pp. 14, 16); and Odile Lesaffre, ‘Louis-Marie Cordonnier et l'architecture du Nord de la France’, De Franse Nederlanden/Les Pays-Bas francais, 23 (1998), pp. 45–64. Also see Lille Before and During the War (London, 1919), pp. 24, 59–63; and Lise Grenier and Hans-Wieser Benedetti, Les Châteaux de l'industrie: Recherches sur l'architecture de la région lilloise de 1830 à 1930 (Paris and Brussels, 1979).

66 Françoise Aubry, ‘Intérieurs’, in Françoise Aubry and others, Art Nouveau, Art Déco et Modernisme (Brussels, 2006), pp. 142–203 (p. 150); and Marcel M. Celis, L'Hôtel Hannon (Brussels, 2003).

67 ‘Une villa d'artiste à Nancy par Émile André, architecte’, Le Cottage, 15 April 1904, pp. 142–49.

68 Charles Diehl, ‘L'Art en Alsace-Lorraine’, in Maurice Barrès and others, Alsace-Lorraine: Les Provinces captives (Toulouse, 1917), pp. 271–96 (pp. 285–86).

69 In fact, one sheet has a sketch of the elevation of the Banque Renauld on one side and one of André's proposals for the École de Nancy's pavilion at the 1909 exposition on the other: ADMM, Fonds André, 119 J 661. On the 1909 exposition, see Frédéric Descouturelle, Bernard Ponton, François Roth and Hélène Sicard-Lenatier, Nancy 1909: Centenaire de l'Exposition Internationale de l'Est de la France (Nancy, 2008).

70 See Pierre Gérard, La Lorraine… Vivante Réalité Humaine… (Nancy, 1972), pp. 9–20; and Léon Germain, Le Chardon Lorrain sous les Ducs René II et Antoine (Nancy, 1885), pp. 1–32.

71 Laurence Picard, ‘L'Art et les plantes: Les Plantes inspiratrices de l’École de Nancy’ (doctoral thesis, Université de Paris 5, 1996), p. 109. See also Cyril Galley and others, D'arbre en art: L'Arboretum d'Amance: un contemporain de l’École de Nancy et un outil toujours actuel de recherche et de diffusion de la connaissance (Paris, 2000), pp. 50–53.

72 Badel, ‘Le Nouvel Immeuble’, p. 269.

73 Majorelle's father-in-law, Joseph Xavier Emile Kretz, had been born in Marckolsheim, Bas-Rhin (Alsace), before the Franco-Prussian war. See the Liste des Baptêmes, Mariages, et Sépultures for the parish of St-Vincent/St Fiacre, Nancy, 1863–65, no. 67: ADMM, Series E, 5 Mi 394/R 184.

74 Gallé's famed table Le Rhin, shown at the 1889 Exposition Universelle, with its defiant imagery protesting against the 1871 Treaty of Frankfurt, was a key example, but the attempts in Nancy to combat such sentiments spanned all types of visual and textual media. See Peter Clericuzio, ‘Memory and Mass Mobilization: The Material Culture of the Alsace-Lorraine Question, 1885–1919’, Journal of the Decorative and Propaganda Arts, 27 (2015), pp. 172–95. On French ‘forgetting’ about Alsace-Lorraine, see ‘L'Alsace-Lorraine et l’état actuel des ésprits’, Mercure de France, 24 (1897), pp. 641–812; and Michael Neiberg, Dance of the Furies: Europe and the Outbreak of World War I (Cambridge, MA, 2011), pp. 57–60.

75 Picard, ‘L'Art et les plantes’, p. 103; Bonin, ‘Une architecture spécifique’, p. 85. A drawing in the Musée d'Orsay's collection shows the fern motif in Gruber's ceiling: Paris, Musée d'Orsay Centre de Documentation, Section des Arts Décoratifs, Dossier Jacques Gruber.

76 Agence Alain Richard, Banque Nationale de Paris, succursale de Nancy: Étude des éléments architecturaux et du décor s'apparentant à l’École de Nancy (Paris, 1984), [n.p.]. Also Bonin, ‘Une architecture spécifique’, p. 92.

77 Badel, ‘Le Nouvel Immeuble’, p. 267; Louis-Charles Boileau, ‘Causerie: Art et pratique’, L'Architecture, 14 (1901), pp. 303–08 (p. 307); and Hallays, Nos villes d'art, pp. 125–35.

78 Émile Toussaint was killed on 20 August 1914 at Morhange, twenty-six miles from Nancy across the German border; he was posthumously inducted into the Légion d'Honneur and awarded the Croix de Guerre. See Livre d'or aux élèves de l’École nationale des beaux arts morts pour la patrie, 1914–1918: Elèves de MM. Laloux et Lemaresquier (Paris, 1919).

79 Roussel, Nancy Architecture 1900, I, p. 16; and Coley, Catherine, ‘L'effort moderne à Nancy dans les années vingt: Chronique du comité Nancy-Paris’, Le Pays Lorrain, 67 (1986), pp. 520Google Scholar.

80 In the 1980s, the Banque Renauld was taken over by the Banque National de Paris (now BNP Paribas), which occupies the entire building, including Renauld's former apartment.

81 On this subject, see Greenhalgh, Paul, Fair World: A History of World's Fairs and International Expositions, 1851–2010 (London, 2011)Google Scholar.

82 This was the argument made by Louis Laffitte, Rapport général sur l'Exposition Internationale de l'Est de la France (Paris and Nancy, 1912). See also Durand, Max, ‘Nancy, II: À travers l'exposition’, Les Annales politiques et littéraires, 8 August 1909, pp. 129–30Google Scholar (p. 129); and Hinzelin, ‘Art en Lorraine’, pp. 199–200.

83 On this, see Jean-Claude Vigato, ‘Entre progrès et tradition’, in Le Régionalisme, ed. Toulier and Loyer, pp. 74–79; and Elizabeth Jean Hornbeck, ‘Visions of Modernity: The Architectural Landscape of the 1925 Exposition of Decorative Arts, Paris’ (doctoral thesis, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2002), pp. 201–14.