Posted 5 years ago
IronLace
(926 items)
A big piece of 1920s-1930s era Czech glass for your enjoyment!
This vase measures 25 cm tall, 8 cm across the top rim, & 9.5 cm across the base. The upper part is made from a predominately orange spatter with touches of red & yellow, with a blue - black bottom up spatter.
No markings at all, like the majority of Czech glass that turns up in Australia.
I wouldn't have described this spatter piece as tango (too many colours?), but I love it!
Many thanks, Broochman!
Wow22, thanks for your thoughts...I did not know that spatter pieces were not regarded as Tango? That's quite a purist definition I guess.
Hate to be a purist! Don't take my word for it. Mostly I regard tango as a solid, bright colour with contrasting trim. There were, however, some spatter pieces in the Tango Sklo exhibition, so I think I need to broaden my definition. So - tango it is, I guess. I would be interested to hear what others think.
I go with the purist definition.....one solid colour with a contrasting colour trim. I would consider IronLace's lovely vase as a spatter piece. As there seem to be no hard and fast rules we can all be right :)
Really I had no idea there was an exact definition of Tango...it seems I've been mis - attributing for years. Horrors! I'll have to rename all my old posts, I guess...
Up until about 2012 the accepted definition of Tango was a solid body piece with a contrasting rim, rigaree etc. In 2012 the Tango exhibit in the Czech Republic changed the perception of what we call Tango by expanding it to seemingly define Tango production as colorful glass inspired by the costumes of Tango dancers. A fair share of the glass examples shown in that exhibition were different types of spatter glass.
I thought the original meaning of Tango glass came from the clothing of the Latin American dancers who toured Europe teaching the Tango. The men wearing black suits with short jackets and the women flouncy dresses in vivid colours These colours were also taken up by pottery designers such as Clarice Cliff, such was the craze.
I doubt we'll ever know how much of the mismatch between exhibition title and exhibition content was incidental or for perfectly good reasons of which we know nothing.
That meaning was emphasized by the Tango exhibit. Prior to that it was more accepted to be a two color combination.
I think we're at odds......I think the original meaning (a two colour combination) did come from the Tango craze, Black and any ONE of the vivid colours the ladies wore. I would stick with that. However the exhibition extended the meaning to include spatter plus black......or even just spatter.
When all is said and done it's just a loose classification....and getting looser seemingly!
I'm enjoying the discussion. In my mind, Tango always included all opaque, brightly coloured glass, usually with a contrasting trim (in black, blue or less commonly, white). I also sometimes 'loosely' include 2-colour spatters where the perception is predominantly of one colour, with trim. This lovely vase really showcases too many colours for my own inclusion, and that's what prompted my original comment. But, then I questioned myself because the Tango Sklo exhibition did include spatters and, as Welzebub commented, the definition now seems to have cast a wider net.
As Sklo commented - there's no precise definition, so we can all be right.
For what it is worth, the original Loetz.com website built by Eddy Scheepers had a decor page, and on that page n the 1905-1920 date range there was a page for "Tango". The Tango pages basically showed two colored glass examples. When the site was sold and rebuilt by the current owner, that decor category was eliminated.
Here is a link to an original version of the decor page:
http://users.skynet.be/fa000612/decors.htm
Here is a link to the page it connects to from the actual site:
http://users.skynet.be/fa000612/decors0520tango.htm
An interesting addition to this discussion are the words of the curator of the Tango Sklo Exhibits in 2012, in her analysis and the point of view of what Tango Sklo meant to her, with what she was exhibiting in the large collection of glass items she put together.
"TANGO SKLO (GLASS) - the changes, the colors, the contrasts.
During the first decade of the 20th century, began performances of the Argentine tango dance, in European dance halls. The spirited costumes the dancers wore, were characterized by distinctive tones of orange, red, yellow and green dresses with black suits for the men. The tango craze was reflected in the applied arts and the new color and color contrasts also inspired glass companies to create a new decorative glass. Already, before the First World War, the notion of Tango glass inspired brilliant yellow, orange, red and green opal glass, whose colors were
achieved by using cadmium sulfide, it also initiated the application of contrasting glass decors in other color combinations including black and cobalt blue.
Tango glass was an unmistakable phenomenon that was mainly seen in Czech glass production throughout the first half of the 20th century. This exhibition presents it in its many forms and innovations over time and by region. It is not just about presenting a certain type of glass.
Now Tango glass can be very well documented as the initial design gradually developed and adopted into commercial production for decades to come. However, this is an issue that goes far beyond a single exhibition. Especially after the first World War, the Tango glass from the Czech lands was mostly exported, mainly to North and South America. For this reason it was possible to organize
an exhibition thanks to the generous access of several private collections from Europe and the USA.
These exhibits come from many important institutions and collectors:
Museum of Glass and Jewelry in Jablonec nad Nisou, Museum of Sumava Susice, Highlands Museum Brod, the Glass Museum in Harrachov, Glass Museum Nový Bor, Glass Museum Kamenický Šenov, State Regional Archives Litomerice, Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, the Regional Museum and Gallery in the Czech Lipa , Regional Museum Dr. Hostaš Klatovy, and private collectors from Austria, Germany, USA, and Czech Republic."
Curator PHDr. Jitka Lnenicková
Goodness me, I've opened up a hornet's nest haven't it? Or Pandora's box. Anyway, I've amended the title & description, as well as having given myself a stern talking to about the matter... :-)