This exquisite orange and black Chauve-Souris (“Bat”) vase by Daum Frères transforms its unusual form into part of its imagery. The shouldered neck has been pinched and hot-drawn into five radiating points, giving the vessel the silhouette of a black henbane, a plant that caused hallucination and death that was used since antiquity. Across the body, a flight of bats appears in acid-etched cameo decoration—a technique in which surrounding layers of glass are etched away to leave the design in relief—with details further refined by wheel carving. The foot is encircled by a Gothic-inspired architectural frieze of alternating trefoil and ogee (S-curved) arches, while cusped ornament rises around the base of the body. The combination of nocturnal bats and Gothic architecture belongs to a recurring strand within Daum’s oeuvre, in which the natural world takes on a mysterious, fantastical character.