Posted 8 years ago
philmac51
(210 items)
I'm not sure of the id on this one and would be grateful if you guys could id for me. I believe it's either Kralik or Ruckl, but I'm not sure.
Quite heavy and pretty thickly layered??? Stands approx 10" (25cm)
Here is an observation I will make, and it certainly does not apply just to this forum.
I am constantly amazed by the restricted choices we apply to attributions before we make them. How about possibly "unknown" ??
The list of companies that made glass in Bohemia/Czechoslovakia is quite long, not to mention ones we do not know at all...... But we seem to restrict options to the names we know. If we limit our options, we limit our thinking, and as a result we place limits on the possible conclusions we can arrive at.
There are companies such as Tomschick, Oertel, Hantich, all of which had some similar production to Kralik, Rückl, Welz, Lötz, and likely a reasonable number of others.
My philosophy has always been that it is unattributed glass by an unknown house, unless we have some actual information otherwise..... whether it be supportable empirical evidence or actual documentation to point us in a direction.
I have studied and accumulated images of this type of glass for a very long time, and far and above, the largest folder of images to date is the unidentified glass.... which is likely 80% or more of my images.
My vote is for unknown, as I have not personally seen anything I would consider to be supportable evidence to claim otherwise.
That décor is clearly defined by pulls of solid color from the base up, and not by a multi colored spatter as seen here. If I had a dollar for every different décor claimed in this forum through the years to be that one, I would have a really big stack of $1 bills.....
I too have a hard time attributing glass to a maker, when the attribution is based on line art that doesn't show the SAME colors as the actual glass.
As we have often seen SIMILAR doesn't cut it!
scott
"That Ruckl decor is not a literal piece of art work, it is meant to show the colors and their range and the dark colored base moving up the glass like flames."
The line art either represents the décors or it does not. It is not a line art piece that can be used reasonably as a "guideline" to interpret in a manner that allows for the line art to be matched to a variety of decors based on an "interpretation", although it seemingly has been used in that manner in this forum. It can be used that way, but not for accurate or supportable research results...... That has actually been my issue with it's use all along, and that is why so many decors have been claimed to be the one you mentioned here, but are completely different from each other in appearance.
If it shows the decor then it can be used. If it is an artistic representation and does not show an accurate and "literal" depiction of the decor then it is artwork and of no real research value, other than possibly for shapes. In that case, only one even remotely close match has ever been found by the many that have looked.
Close counts does not really apply for this type of work.... especially when close counts has had so many obviously different interpretations from that artwork here in the last two+ years.
Thanks guys, I've seen the line art also and as scott points out, it is difficult to be entirely persuaded by what I have seen. Personally my collection mostly consists of Kralik as much of it is clearly identifiable both in shape and decor and the OC in me prefers to know with some certainty who made what. However this doesn't stop me collecting pieces like the above also which I find quite beautiful and show a high degree of fine workmanship. Personally I would 'lean' toward Ruckl, but I struggle to say that it is, with any real conviction.
for me the main subject is that it is wonderful
Agreed!
You are very welcome Lisa and I to feel it is likely Ruckl but with wriggle room for a little doubt.
It could be Rückl production. It may be something else. My point has always been that there is a huge difference between stating an "opinion" about what it "may be", and stating what it is, and what décor it is. You can find incorrectly identified glass for sale on ebay, Etsy, and other sales venues that references or are obviously based on mistakes posted in this forum as "facts".
I get asked about glass pieces all of the time through my website and from collectors around the world I know. Some of them are in this forum. Most can tell you that the most common response I give is that I do not know, or I suspect it could be X, or it could be Y, but there is not enough actual evidence to make an attribution so it is an unknown piece of production at this point.
Generally what this research is, is studying to learn what is actually known, and in the process actually finding a compilation of known tidbits and assembling them to form a picture of history not previously seen before. There are small amounts of actually new and unknown information that come to light on occasion, and what is found, is found pretty slowly.
It is my opinion, through a very long time years of doing this type of research, that if one actually does research to find the truth, then the first thing that needs to be exercised is great patience. IN many cases, the answer to a single question can take years to uncover. With the exercise of patience, the conclusions people post would be more apt to stand the test of time.
yep.... different strokes for different folks.....
Thanks guys - really appreciate the debate and information.
At least we all agree it's Czech. Most probably!
I think we can all agree on that......
Phil, it's very interesting comments here, you can add also" different posting time" different attribution.
I have similar vase, size, shape and slightly different colour, at the time I posted, everyone mention "Kralik" with links , comments and so on an on,,,,,,
Now, I don't know anymore:-(
Congrats on your new acquisition.
Regards
Alan
That's an interesting comment - I'm going to post a pair of really nice Scailmont vases in the next week or so Lisa that I just acquired today in fact, not spatter but combination threaded decor and combination blown opaline and crystal glass, can't wait to get them.
I think Alan took a lot of his older posts down some time ago Lisa. It may have been one of those that he removed...
Yep - I know the pulled spatter that you are talking about, in fact Ian posted a very nice pulled spatter vase just recently: http://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/200321-large-mirrored-cased-spatter-glass-vase
To the untrained eye could easily be mistaken for another maker...
Phil the individual post I removed some time ago, but I will repost it soon.
But for now I still have a group post still up.
The vase i referred to was on the back on the left, very tall one with a metal frog.
http://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/187594-bohemian-art-glass-groupingwilhelm-kral.
Regards
Alan