Emile Gallé "Cherry Blossom" Table

This carved mahogany and marquetry table by Émile Gallé features a cherry blossom–shaped top, inlaid with blossoming boughs and a violin. The floral imagery draws on the Yoshino cherry, a delicate variety distinguished by its pale pink hue and single row of petals, while the table’s overall silhouette evokes the fuller form of the Kanzan cherry, known for its densely layered, richly colored blossoms. The legs are enriched with pierced carvings of ripening cherries that converge at a central finial shaped like a budding flower. In a manner akin to Gallé’s Vases parlants, the tabletop bears an inlaid poetic inscription by Pierre Quillard: “Des sons légers de chanterelles… Et dans les bois, des voix des voix… Dans le ciel des ailes des ailes…” (“The light sounds of chanterelles… And in the woods, voices, voices… In the sky, wings, wings…”). The poem evokes an atmosphere of echoing resonance, where sound disperses gently through a woodland landscape, suggesting an ethereal, almost immaterial acoustic space.