Art Nouveau glass from a closed Lorraine museum: the Philippe Olland collection at Drouot — Millon, Paris

Philippe Olland was a publisher in Lorraine when he found a Daum vase at a flea market. Over the following three decades he assembled some 700 pieces of Art Nouveau glass, founded the association Émaux et Verres d’Art in 2014, showed the collection in a museum at Montigny-lès-Metz, and wrote a dictionary of the master glassmakers, published by Faton and rewarded by the Académie nationale de Metz in 2017. The museum has recently closed. The first part of the collection now goes under the hammer in Paris.

Millon, an auction house in business since 1928, sells 198 lots on Friday 18 September 2026 at the Hôtel Drouot, with an overall estimate between 350,000 and 480,000 euros. The catalogue reads as a genealogy of the movement: an enamelled soliflore by Philippe-Joseph Brocard from 1868, before the École de Nancy existed; two marqueteries aux orchidées by Émile Gallé, estimated 7,000 to 9,000 euros each; a Gallé Magnolias vase shown at the Salon of 1897; a Daum Anémones Sylvie vase. Around them sit the other signatures of the Lorraine glassworks, Burgun Schverer, Désiré Christian and Muller Frères, in cameo, enamel and acid-etched floral decoration.

The public viewing is the part that matters to anyone who is not bidding. For four days the lots are on the tables in room 6, close enough to read the signatures and the layers of the cameo work, which is not how a museum vitrine lets you see them.

Practical details

• Viewing: Tuesday 15 and Wednesday 16 September, 11am to 6pm; Thursday 17 September, 11am to 8pm; Friday 18 September, 11am to 12pm
• Sale: Friday 18 September 2026 at 2pm, room 6
• Where: Hôtel Drouot, 9 rue Drouot, 75009 Paris, France
• Expert: Claude-Annie Marzet; department contact at Millon, Antonio Casciello
• Catalogue: online on the Millon website, with bidding in the room, by telephone and online

This is part one of the collection. Cultural Heritage Online lists the sale for readers who follow the glass of the École de Nancy and want to see these pieces together before they are dispersed.