Emile Gallé turned to commercial lamp design quite late in his career. He was already a French “art star” noted for experimental glass and inlaid furniture inspired by Japanese design, French symbolist poetry, and his own extensive flower gardens at Nancy in eastern France. Shortly before he designed this lamp to exploit the potentially beautiful effects of glass viewed by brilliant electric light, books on the Language of Flowers had assigned “fame” as the symbolic meaning of the Trumpet Flower. The lamp’s stylized naturalistic decoration expresses the Art Nouveau style, inspired by Japanese arts and crafts that were regularly exhibited at international world fairs during the last third of the 19th century. Japanese designs gradually captured the imagination of western artisans and craftsmen who incorporated Japonesque ideas into their own works. Siegfried Bing, a noted Parisian dealer and entrepreneur, coined the phrase “Art Nouveau”—literally “new art”—to describe and market decorative arts by Gallé, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and others. Bing’s term soon became the catchphrase for turn-of-the-century modern crafts, particularly those with designs drawn from nature. The choice of goldfish as the subject of this woven fabric was surely influenced by the Japanese aesthetic, which is also reflected in the overlapping of motifs—partially hiding and partially revealing each fish. The introduction of rayon into the weave gives the fabric an iridescent quality, accenting the transparency of the goldfish fins, while the inclusion of sea plants and blue water in the design speaks to an interest in the natural world.