Glass displaying - Decor families

These are glass pieces from the late 1920’s made by Franz Welz in Czechoslovakia.

I wanted to write a few more personal posts about collecting in general; share some thoughts about displaying the glass. Displaying Czech Glass is it art onto itself ; very similar to interior decorating or architecture. I am constantly challenged on deciding whether to keep a piece, sell it or how to display it.

I remember in the early days of collecting glass, there used to be collectors that would only buy a certain color, “I only collect cobalt glass”.... while one persons preference can seem alien to us over time collecting and displaying has evolved. I starting collecting the biggest heaviest Czech glass I could find- but it got old after a while, It was like listening to speed-metal and only speed-metal all the time!

In the next few posts I will focus on different ways of collecting glass and my thoughts on how to display them. Please you enjoy these groupings of “family portraits”.

Family grouping: a glass display based on common decor (or pattern) in different shapes and sizes

1. Orange and maroon in a line and dot decor. Orange and maroon are one of the most plentiful Welz decors- that can be good for this kind of display, choosing a decor that is more common can lead to a larger family more quickly (and cheaply)

2. These are umbrella shapes in the line and bubble decor. I find umbrella shapes don’t play “nice” with other pieces so I tend to put them off by themselves. I put them together in different colors by related shapes or I put them together in the same decor- as seen here

3. Cobalts in Line and spot decor. They look cool because of the range in size. If you have a few medium sizes and introduce a big one, it doesn’t work that well- best to have large, medium and small to show scale. Here you see a range from 14” to the 3 3/4”

4. This is a purple Line and dot decor (Not my best grouping), I have to add or subtract something to make it work better. This decor range is plentiful if you are buying from different parts of the world- although certain styles are easier to find in some countries and harder in others.

Welz displays well in “family“groups because the shapes are so complimentary to each other, it’s like a wedding photo where every body type was wearing the same dress or suite color. It’s interesting to see what each shape does to a pattern.

Most of their Welz glass range is from 6-9” so you can display much more on one shelf than you can with other makers. I used to laugh at a collector that only collected very small pieces so they could display more pieces per shelf, now I’m getting around to their wisdom in displaying glass