Posted 5 years ago
Agnaart
(1 item)
First of all, I'd like to emphasize that the issue of identification in the case of this vase is probably not as straightforward as I originally thought.
I've recently found a note concerning this design in a Polish museum publication, which ascribed the origin of this glass item to a Polish glassworks. However, in my opinion there are several factors that should be taken into consideration in order to avoid jumping to a conclusion too hastily. Below you will find a description of the information provided by the museum. Next, I'm going to refer to the sources of possible difficulties as far as making a final statement about the id of the vase is concerned.
The first two photos come from Chapter I of the book published in 2018 by a Regional Museum in Stalowa Wola in Poland. The third photo shows the cover of this book.
It is titled "Szklo i ceramika Art Deco", which means "Art deco glass and ceramics", with Anna Sieradzka as the main editor.
It is a catalogue of a large collection of Art Deco glass and ceramic items gathered by the museum. The first half of this book (which is 500 pages long) is devoted to glasswork. I also know that the museum has organised an exhibition of Art Deco glass from its collection.
The vase in the photos (page 207 of the book) is 16,5cm high, made of transparent rosalin glass. Its number in the museum's collection is MRS/H/1447 (mentioned at the bottom of the page, below the description - visible in the second photo).
The description says that this vase was produced in Poland sometime around 1930, but an exact year hasn't been mentioned.
Also, the glassworks that made it was not identified. In the same catalogue there's a photo of a similar three-legged vase, and its description mentions yet another vase of a similar design that was originally shown in the catalogue of Niemen glassworks published in 1935.
As I pointed out at the beginning of my post, despite the information given in the catalogue, there are several issues that can make the identification problematic. To begin with, the first decades of the twentieth century were the time when a lot of design coping was involved, both within the borders of the countries in the central part of Europe, as well as at international level.
Secondly, during the tragic years of World War II a part of the glassworks documentation was lost, stolen or destroyed.
From my point of view, the fact that the museum did not ascribe the id of the vase to any specific Polish glassworks, may suggest that so far no glassworks catalogue evidence has been found that would make the identification mystery easy to solve.
All things considered, I do hope that there is still a chance that in the future someone will come across a 100% valid proof of this design's identity, and share it with us.
Hello, I do not want to seem negative but until someone finds this exact vase in a catalogue from the 1930's, Polish or Czech, I don't think it can be attributed to a specific company. Let's hope someone does find one. Also at that time companies did not worry about "borrowing" other companies' designs.
The vase from the catalogue from 1935,no 1625-1628 is merely similar to that presented in the photo.The only similarity is that it is three legged.There are also two vases 1008-1009 on three legs,but all of them are of different shape.Most of art deco items produced by Niemen glassworks were "borrowed" from European companies ,from Scailmont to Bagley,and if they weren't signed in any way,it's difficult to id them.
I'd be also very careful with id on the basis of our musems catalogues or auction houses like Desa.Being a glass collector for more than twenty years I was too often disappointed with their id statements.
Ivonne, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge of the topic with me!
As for Desa, I've figured out that - to my surprise - some of their id statements can be questioned.
Anyway, I've been thinking about this vase a lot today, and what worried me most (and you brought it up in your comment) is the fact that there was so much glass design copying involved at the time this item was made, and this does not exclude Polish glassworks. Secondly, the book published by the museum does not refer to a specific producer, which suggests that so far no glassworks catalogue evidence has been found that could make the Polish origin of the vase unquestionable. All things considered, the id issue seems more complex than I originally thought...
I'm thinking of editing my post to emphasize the fact that although the book states the vase is a Polish design, there are reasons for plausible problems with exact identification of this item's origin. I guess I'd also alter the title so that it says the vase was "possibly" made in Poland, in order to draw the reader's attention to the information that the attribution of this design to Polish glassworks may be considered as problematic.
However, I'm a new user and the last thing I'd like to do is to violate the rules that concern publishing posts here (I haven't found any referrence to editing in FAQs and guidelines). Do you think I can edit my post this way? At this point of the discussion I think I should introduce changes in my post so that it doesn't sound misleading. I'd be grateful if you shared your opinion with me.
Hi,your attitude is entirely right.I think you can edit and rearrange the post ,giving an information why it is done.CW is a place where discussions take place but they should be factual and friendly.
This is a link to my old post,partly devoted to Niemen.Now I definitely know none of presented vases wasn't made by them https://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/192726-follow-up-to-sklos-czech-art-deco-press
To further muddy the waters, I think that two British companies, Bagley and Davidson, made these 'rocket vases' as they were sometimes called. The Czech group, Sklo Union, made a similar shape but with a flat, disc like foot instead of the legs. This is from memory so I could be wrong!
Ivonne, sklo42, I'm very grateful for your comments; the information you shared has helped me to reach the conclusion that sometimes the information provided in a museum publication should be given a second thought in order to avoid making a final statement too hastily. I'll edit my post and point it out that apart from the info published by the museum there are other factors that can possibly make the id problem difficult to cope with in the case of this vase.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Amber-Glass-Rocket-Vase-Czech-1930s-Rosice/163412178462?hash=item260c1ff61e:g:BqEAAOSwjRtbP04Z
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pink-Czech-Glass-1930-Rocket-Vase-Depression-Vintage/164033540857?_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D225074%26meid%3D98418960236f471cb239be3df728a54a%26pid%3D100675%26rk%3D4%26rkt%3D15%26mehot%3Dnone%26sd%3D274247366071%26itm%3D164033540857%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2380057&_trksid=p2380057.c100675.m4236&_trkparms=pageci%3Ab74d2992-4ad8-11ea-ab73-74dbd1803912%7Cparentrq%3A277dd8021700a4b77cdb5d0cffe2b336%7Ciid%3A1
Hi, Looker; I've already seen these two, as well as some others that mention the Czech origin. However, from my point of view the fact that some people wrote about it in their listings (even if this means a lot of people have done that) does not automatically make it true.
First of all, a lot of people tend to copy things from each other, without going further than that, and searching for a more reliable source of information. Obviously, the best one would be the original producer's catalogue, but in the case of this vase, it seems to me (at this moment), it has not been found yet - if it did, I do hope that someone will share this information here!
Anyway, in my view another resource that can be mentioned as a potential conveyor of reliable info may be a catalogue of a formal exhibition of art deco glass, or a well-researched book written by professionals, like art deco historians and museum workers who specialize in 20th century glass, work with a specific glass collection and study it on a daily basis. And this can be said about the authors of the museum's catalogue I wrote about - I've read about the way the catalogue was prepared in the book's preface.
To me, this is much more reliable than some people's listing descriptions.
However, and I'd like to emphasize this, I think that in this particular case there are other factors that should be taken into consideration (and the authors of some comments here pointed them out, as well as I did in an edited version of my post). Therefore, I think that it's impossible to exclude the Czech origin at this point.
On the other hand, so far I haven't found anything that would refer to anything that potentially could be thought of as a reliable source of information that the vase is indeed of Czech origin (and in the case of listing descriptions - most of them have no referrence to any resource at all). I've investigated the topic, and found a listing that actually mentions a source of information. I checked that, too, and again, this webpage also skips the issue of a potentially reliable source of information, because the links it contains lead to some other websites that do not justify their opinion, and so on, and so forth, like in a circle. (By the way, I'm planning to contact the authors of these webpages, if that's possible, and ask for their resource).
Someone could ask: so why is the Czech origin mentioned so often by the authors of listings, apart from the fact that many of them are based on the content of other listings? I think one of the probable reasons is the fact that on one hand, the Czech and Polish designs of the art deco era often have numerous similar features (in many cases due to the frequent "borrowing" designs from each other). And on the other hand, currently the Czech Bohemian glass is much more popular and well-researched on an international level, which to some extent is caused by the fact that there are virtually no resources (that can be taken seriously) on Polish twentieth century glass written in English, accessible to people passionate about glass all around the world - which I think is a huge mistake, and I hope this is going to be changed in the future.
As a result, it's much more frequent that people in common seek the origin of such an art deco glass item in Czechoslovakia rather than Poland. And again, even in this case it's not easy to reach a source of that info that could potentially cut all the discussion.
When it comes to the issue of collectors copying attribution info from each other, there's a very popular vase design made by the Swedish Aseda, which real origin can be traced. As a coincidence, it has some features that make it resemble an Italian Murano glass style, like the use of bulicante glass making technique. As a result, there's a significant number of listings that repeat the false information about the Italian origin. I found that interesting and got in touch with a few authors of such descriptions - they explained that they wrote about it because they saw this (false) piece of information in numerous other listings! No one mentioned anything that could be taken into consideration as a potential source of valid information.
To sum up, at this point of the discussion, I find the museum book I mentioned as one of a serious sources of referrence. However once again, I'd like to point out that I cannot say that I can exclude the Czech or even other origin, due to a number of factors that I described in the edited post.
I enjoyed your long comment and explanation, it's a good text that shows what seems easy is very complicated in reality. I wanted to add my 2 cents about this and your pink 'rocket' vase.
First it's important to note that it is pressed glass, why? Because it will help pin down which company produced it in Europe. Second, the vase was made for export, at a time when this modern shape and color was appreciated. Third, most of the European glass making and exporting companies were competing with each other for the same market share, mostly in UK and USA.
Some of these countries and companies are Inwald in Czechoslovakia, Hemanova Hut by Stoltze in the same country, Walthers in Germany, Val St. Lambert in Belgium, these are the better known producers and we have access to a few of their catalogs on one site.
There are similar vases dating mid 1930s, in these catalogs, but the war disrupted much of everything in the glass industry, so by 1939, information is sketchy. You just happened to focus on a topic I am much involved in right now. :-)
The site is:
https://www.glas-musterbuch.de/h2-glas-br-musterbuch-de-h2.26.0.html
Hi, truthordare, thank you for the link as well as for adding your 2 cents to the discussion!
You mentioned another important aspect when it comes to the issue of this vase and its attribution to a specific producer (or at least the country, where it was produced). This is export and a lot of competition between glass making companies related to it.
Winning the commercial battle over such large markets as the American one meant a huge amount of income. When we combine this with the lack of care about copyright issues, which was so common during the period between the First and the Second World War, this combination must have exerted a significant impact on the competition between large glass producing companies of the Art Deco era.
So far I haven't thought of potential difficulties that may have arisen from the characteristics of international glass trade at that time - thank you for mentioning this aspect in the discussion about the three-legged rosalin glass vase.
It made me recall something that I noticed (and read about) about the post-Second World War international glass trade in this European region, which includes both Czechoslovakia and Poland. The carefree attitude towards design authorship and the importance of glassworks attribution was reflected in the labels put on glass products that were meant to go for export. Very often they did not mention the specific producer, limitting information to the country origin. As a result, among the labels frequently used were the ones that read "Handmade in Poland", "Bohemian Glass Czechoslovakia" etc. Obviously, this practice has made the identification of numerous post-war glass designs from this region much more difficult, if not impossible in some cases. The fact that such was the common approach in this European area after the Second World War, allows to speculate that the attitude towards specific origin of the product in the time of Depression did not differ much from the one in the following decades.
Anyway, thinking of all the factors related to the glass production and trade during the first decades of the previous century has influenced my own perception of the origin attribution process in the case of numerous art deco pressed glass items, including the vase in question. Many times things turn out to be not as easy as they initially appeared to me, but on the other hand, the complexity of the identification search process makes vintage glass passion (in my view) even more attractive! :-)
AGREE! completely.
Made by Czech manufacturer Rosice in the 1930s.
Collectors had dubbed these type of Art Deco vases as Rocket Vases,