English: Among the highlights of the collection at the "35 Centuries of Glass" gallery at the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York, as seen during an April 2022 visit, is Les Hommes noirs, or "The Dark Men", a masterpiece of glass art completed in 1900 by the celebrated French glass artist Emile Gallé in collaboration with painter and sculptor Victor Prouvé. An example of what the former liked to refer to as a vase parlant, or "talking vase"; more precisely, a two-handled urn made of transparent yellowish glass encased inside three thick layers of dark brown glass, etched to show imagery of dark, monstrous creatures in a fascinating interplay of dark and light forms, along with an inscription reading Hommes noirs, d'où sortez-vous ? - Nous sortons de dessous terre ("Dark men, where do you come from? - We come from beneath the earth"). In a letter to Prouvé, Gallé explained his intentions to portray an allegory about the dangers of "fanaticism, hatred, and prejudice", and particularly of the wave of anti-Semitism that had overtaken France in the wake of the Dreyfus Affair. The piece was completed in time to be displayed at the Exposition Universelle de Paris, retained by Gallé for his personal collection, and finally donated to the museum in 2009 after the death of Jean Bourgogne, his last surviving descendant. An unfinished second copy is also displayed in the Musée de l'École de Nancy.