Coffret with Émile Gallé Marquetry of “Mayfly and Ferns”

The motifs on this coffret by Émile Gallé depict a mayfly flitting among a bed of ferns. Hatching in summer and living only a few hours before mating and dying, the mayfly has long symbolized love’s fleeting and ephemeral nature in poetic tradition. In Japanese woodblock print albums, the kagerō (mayfly) frequently appears in insect-themed collections, alluding to its eponymous chapter in The Tale of Genji. Similarly, in Les Fleurs du mal, Charles Baudelaire writes, “You are a candle where the mayfly dies, / In flames, blessing this fire’s deadly bloom,” evoking love as both consuming and doomed.This motif, therefore, represents a fatalistic love, in which the lover risks everything for an ill-fated union. In contrast, Galle often turned to another of his favored symbols—the fern. He incorporated imagery of this ancient flora, including ferns, giant horsetails, calamites, and sigillaria, as emblems of permanence and endurance. By contrasting both motifs, Galle dictates an allegory of love in passionate lust and love in steadfast fidelity. Accordingly the coffret was intended to be a love letter holder, complete with a lock and key so as to assure secrecy.