Vase by Gallé

Vase given to Louis Pasteur by students and teachers of the Ecole normale supérieure on the occasion of his jubilee in 1892. The exterior decoration is composed of a dragon spitting flames, a rabid dog, a seven headed python, a hen, two rays of light, a Petri dish, a microscope, a test tube, spirillas, various micro-organisms, a silkworm larva, thorns and drops of blood, plants including dittany, as well as verses taken from Les Contemplations by Victor Hugo (One will see the herd of formidable hydra / Leave, rise from the bottom of the unfathomable mists / And be transfigured. I go begging, and always an instinct brings me back / To know the depths of human suffering.).
The interior decoration illustrates the development of micro-organisms.