Argy Rousseau’s Algues nightlight displays the Fucus, a brown algae harvested in Brittany, flanking a spray of water in an arresting teal and amethyst. The seaweed harvest was historically carried out by “goemoniers,” laborers who harvested seaweed with donkey carts for fuel or fertilizer. The subject matter was popular among painters of the Realism movement, who often depicted Britannian labor and religious practices. Notably, marine Biologist Ernst Haeckel dedicated a plate to brown algae in his widely referenced 1904 edition of Kunstformen der Natur. Argy Rousseau has exaggerated the form of the receptacles, the reproductive organ of the seaweed, stylizing the marine species like the more traditional epis de ble (sheaf of wheat). Like many pieces of Art Deco lighting, the structure of the design is based on a fountain, the central attraction to the 1925 World Fair, in which the centerpiece was a 45-foot glass fountain by René Lalique.