CLAUDIUS LINOSSIER (1893-1953) Zig-zag frieze Horn-shaped vase resting on a circular base. Proof in hammer-mounted copper dinanderie; the base in wrought iron. Decorated with a fire patina and silver inlays on a background of red, ochre and anthracite shades, also with a fire patina. Signed Cl. LINOSSIER and numbered 25 under the base. Height: 19 cm CLAUDIUS LINOSSIER, LITTLE MORE THAN A COPPERSMITH Taming fire is the credo and challenge of the modern coppersmith, making it his ally, his constant quest. Some - and they are rare - have managed to go beyond this confrontation to transcend metal and its expression. Of course, the great elders paved the way: the Hussons, Bonvallets and Capons gave this art form its letters of nobility. They were quickly followed by those who left their name in the history of the decorative arts. Their names were Jean Dunand, master of metal and its decorative effects due to patinas and the application of lacquer; Paul Mergier, more decorator than researcher; Maurice Daurat, pewter potter; Gabriel Lacroix, sculptor of perpetual challenge; Jean Serrière, fi gure of transition; and, of course, Claudius Linossier, artist with such a personal universe. Linossier's world is his own and unlike any other. It would be far too easy here to dwell on his perfect mastery of the hammer, taming copper or nickel silver like no other, when from his flat sheets emerge large ovoid or spherical vases or cleverly curved cones. Although this facet of his work moves us, it's the mystery of his patinas and decorations that fascinates us. His deep or nuanced reds, his lacquer-glazed anthracites, his ochre-oranges taking the form of clouds have covered the backgrounds of the coppersmith's works and still delight the eye. The play of the flashlight, for us quite mysterious, revealed what we might suppose to be the soul of the metal, evoking the eruption of a benevolent volcano. Even more than his fire coverings, it's his decorations that, when we look into them, inhabit us as they must have inhabited him. Greeks, triangles, spirals, squares, lozenges, circles and other antique geometrical figures, treated in inlaid silver, rise up in friezes or chutes that adorn her works and settle on her fire-worked backgrounds. These superimpositions, never haphazard, probably both question and dazzle us, taking us back to an archaic art but also to a great modernity, and revealing the esoteric and mystical side of the work, quite unexpected in this good-natured character. Linossier's motifs and decorative arrangements, and his highly personal shaping of metal, take us into a new world, while at the same time linking us to ancient civilizations, a challenge that many artists have tried to meet without really succeeding. These singular aspects of his work have left a unique mark, undeniably, but above all a universal and timeless one. Indeed, in addition to its undeniable decorative qualities, it's impossible for anyone who holds a Linossier piece in their hands, whatever their cultural or geographical origin, not to be sensitive to this handwriting and to be moved by it, without often being able to situate it in time. Certainly, the artist's personal history and path have a lot to do with this outcome and his choice of metal as the medium of his expression, but, just as the coppersmith keeps the secrets of mastering fire close to him, the works of Claudius Linossier only partially reveal their creator and their process, which remains an enigma to this day.