ARIANE vase, Floris Meydam. Leedam, 2007

Until last Summer I had no pieces of Dutch glass at all... I wanted to buy some wonderful Berlage yellow items years ago (when Botterweg was not an auction house but a normal online shop) but after saving for them I found out they had just been sold :(

But last June we decided (quite unexpectedly... it was a last minute decision) to visit the Netherlands. The main reasson was visiting a lot of places -museums and botanical gardens mostly- that Carlos really wanted to know as he was writing his book and a visit to these places would be extremely important for him... We didn't stay in Amsterdam but we spent a couple of days there (had our hotel in Utrecht, an amazing town, and everyday took a train to go to the different cities we wanted to visit: Amsterdam, Den Haag, Rotterdam, Haarlem, Leiden...).

We got a lot of books, some antique for Carlos and only two glass items, and one of them was this Ariane vase. I had always liked this Orange vases (made to celebrate important moments for the Dutch Royal family or for the coutry itself (like the one designed by Andries Copier to celebrate the end of WWII), and this one, even being quite new -was designed in by Floris Meydam in 2007 to celebrate the birth of Princess Ariane- I always thought quite appealing, probably due to its Art Deco-ish look... (my other favourite one is also very new, Amelia, design by Menno Jonker in 2003... and the reasson for it is its stunningly modern shape.)

The vase was first produced in a limited edition of 1000 pieces by a company called Replique. Of the 1000 pieces delivered to Leerdam, approx 300 were returned to Replique to be destroyed and 300 new items were made and marked from 1001 to 1300 of 1300. And my vase is precisely number 1300Q and stands 12 cm. tall with a diameter of 8,8 cm. The Q stands for Replique.

Please note that the three first pics are not mine... I have taken them from the Botterweg website. Only the fourth pic is of my vase... well, right now I cannot take any nice pics of glass at home... and Botterweg's are sooooo much better!!!