An important Early Loetz Intarsia Vase.

In the late Victorian period vases with complex applied glass décorations of flowers, branches etc. were very popular, Loetz produced some of the finest examples of its so called 'Barock' Glass. With the emerging Art Nouveau, under the influence of Japanese woodcuts, more flat, uniformly coloured faces became interesting. Loetz looked out for a method to put the applied décors into the surface of the glass and thereby invented and developed the 'Intarsia' technique. In 1885 Loetz patented in its 'Privileg Nr. 36/623' at 28.Dec.1885 its 'Intarsia' glass, where preformed coloured glass sheets are attached onto the hot, liquid glassballoon, which is then fully blown out into its final shape in a mould, resulting in a melted thin coloured glass décor, totally embedded in the basic glass surface. This requires highly skilled glassmasters and use of coloured glass of the very same thermal expansion coefficient, as otherwise the inlaid intarsia glass would have cracked on cooling. The motives are mostly taken from plants, like flowering branches and are still used in the Loetz 'Phaenomen Genres' e.g. like 'Hanging Hearts'. The décor is then finally shaped by engraving, etching and gold contouring. This technique was advantages over the traditional coloured coating, as there was no need to remove unwanted glass parts. Loetz presented examples of 'Intarsia' at various exhibitions, see eg 'Arts and Crafts Exhibition, Munic' in Chronik Muenchen 1888, page 1749 and 'World Exhibition, Paris' in Centralblatt, 1890, page 4. Two known 'Intarsia' examples are shown as inlays in the last photo. The lower left small vase H=8 cm is kept at the 'Musée du Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers' at Paris. Janine Bloch-Dermant assigned it in her book 'The Art of French Glass' page 14 fig. 6. to the 'Frères Boutigny' as the important precursor of Emile Galle's 'Marquetterie de Verre'. Now, actually the 'Frères Boutigny' were official French retailors of Loetz noted under 'Com. 89'. The second inlay on the right side of photo 4 shows a wine glass of the same décor as my vase, kept at the 'Kunstgewerbe Museum', Prague and taken from the book 'Loetz Boehmisches Glas 1880-1940, Vol.1, page 62, fig.2, together with a much simpler decorated red 'Intarsia' vase.

My vase shows a typical 'Japanoise' flowering cherry branch, made of dark brown glass with 11 light green leaves and 4 pink flower buds and 3 blossoms. The blossoms themselves are composed of six tiny glass petals, a central surrounded by five outer ones. The foot is hand shaped out of dark blue glass, pulled up into eight tongues and applied similarly like the intarsia glass. The guilded top neck with polished, doubly chamfered edges, shows a light yellow tint due to a extremely thin metallic surface layer (obviously made according to the Loetz privilege Nr. 46/1578 at 14.Dec.1895 for '... making items having an intense metallic golden or blue shine ...'), the body is slightly opaque and the ribbed handles are made of clear glass. All parts are richly enhanced by golden ink décors. This vase belonged to the high end luxury glass series of Loetz and is a very rare surviving example of the earliest Bohemian Art Nouveau vases.

Emile Galle may have seen this vase in France and he patented 'Intarsia Glass' in 1898 as 'Marquetterie de Verre' and developed this technique to an unreached mastership. Loetz laid 13 years before the basis for this essential glass décoration technique, often used lateron by Harrach and Moser and still widely applied today.

My vase is blown from the top stands H=20 cm and has a maximum diameter of D=17 cm, its weight is kg=1.020.