Vase
Life Story
This lime-green glass vase with pewter neck mount was possibly manufactured at a factory in Bohemia around 1900. Unfortunately, this object is unsigned and the manufacturer has not been identified.
Widest at the base and tapering towards the rim, the blow-moulded form of this vessel has diagonal indentations that create a spiralling effect. The vase is completed with a wide pewter neck mount with a repoussé design of pomegranates. Four green glass cabochons stud the rim, adding opulence to the hammered relief work of the mount. Imaginative interpretations of nature were a key characteristic of Art Nouveau design.
Between 1890 and 1910, the Art Nouveau style shaped the aesthetics of European and American architecture and applied design. The Austro-German counterpart to Art Nouveau, ‘Jugendstil’ (Youth Style), took its name from the Munich-based journal Die Jugend, which featured illustrations by Secessionist artists and avant-garde designers. [3] Bohemian glassworks were conscious of these artistic developments and catered to the growing demand in Europe’s capital cities for innovative Jugendstil designs.
Vanessa Tothill, February 2021
Further Reading
Amaya, Mario, Art Nouveau (London: Dutton Vista, 1966)
Couldrey, Vivienne, The Art of Louis Comfort Tiffany (London: Quarto Publishing, 1989)
Geitner, Amanda and Emma Hazell, ed., The Anderson Collection of Art Nouveau (Norwich: Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, 2003)
Greenhalgh, Paul, ed., Art Nouveau, 1890-1914 (London: V&A Publications, 2000)
Greenhalgh, Paul, ed., The Nature of Dreams: England and the Formation of Art Nouveau (Norwich: Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, 2020)
