Vase
Pallme-König und Habel
Life Story
This unsigned green iridescent Art Nouveau glass vase has been attributed to the firm Pallme-König und Habel. Manufactured in Bohemia, this work is an example of Czechoslovakian Jungendstil design.
Overlapping and interlocking glass threads of uneven thickness ornament the surface of the vessel, creating a veined decoration that has been pressed into the walls of the vase. This type of surface pattern is characteristic of Pallme-König und Habel, and this glassware is one of two examples by this glass manufacturer in the Sainsbury Centre Collection (see object 21076).
Glass trails were applied to the glob of molten glass at the end of the blowpipe before it was blow moulded into a double gourd form. [1] Widest at the base with a slight foot, the vessel narrows at the waist before swelling at the shoulder and ending with a flared neck. The vase’s undulating profile reveals the influence of East Asian aesthetics on European design at the turn of the century.
This iridized vase shows dark green with areas of purple around the base and above the shoulder. The introduction of metallic salts, such as stannous chloride or lead chloride, in a reducing atmosphere (an atmosphere lacking oxygen or other oxidizers) produced a visual effect that was similar in appearance to excavated Roman, Egyptian and Syrian glass. [2] Leading manufacturers of iridescent art glass refined and patented their own methods for producing metallic lustres.
Established in 1786 at Steinschönau,Northern Bohemia (present day Kamenický Šenov, Czech Republic), Ignaz Pallme- König’s glassworks produced engraved glass and chandaliers for export. The firm was renamed Glasfabrik Elisabeth, Pallme-König und Habel, after it merged with Wilhelm Habel’s Elisabethhütte glassworks in Kosten (now Kościan, Poland), Northern Bohemia in 1889. [3]
From 1910-1919, Josef Velik and Alois Ritter developed the production of free form glass at Pallme-König und Habel, creating new works with threaded and veined decoration. [4]
Vanessa Tothill, January 2021
[1] Amanda Geitner and Emma Hazell, ed., The Anderson Collection of Art Nouveau (Norwich: Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, 2003), p. 139.
[2] https://libanswers.cmog.org/faq/144652 [accessed 27 January 2021]
[3] Geitner, p. 139.
[4] Geitner, p. 139.
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)
