HARRACHOV BOWL MILAN METELÁK “MERLETTO”

I have two pieces by MILAN METELÁK for HARRACHOV as part of the HARRTIL RANGE . This one I got about three months ago at a Saturday morning market here in Sydney for a crazy ten dollars!

I liked the vibrant blue which the Czechs call “Vecerní mode” or “evening blue’.

It's Harrach from around 1955. The range of wares is called "Harrtil" and was designed by Milan Metelák and Milos Pulpitel.

This 'art glass bowl' may well have been an ash tray but these days I like to call these non-PC objects ‘vide-poches’: an object where you put stuff from your pockets when arriving home.

“In 1955 the Harrachov factory in Bohemia in Czechoslovakia launched a range of art glass called Harrtil. It was developed by designer Milan Metelák and factory manager Milos Pulpitel. The fine white mesh of woven glass fibres (known as "merletto" - net - in Italian) trapped within heavy glass casing can be seen in all the pieces in the series.” (modernistglass.com)

Metelák Milan (1928 - 1993) was a significant glass artist and also a talented painter, the elder son of Alois Metelák, the first director Zelezny Glass School.

“Glasshound” explains: These Harrtil pieces are often mistaken for the true “merletto” pieces of Archimede Seguso. “Merletto” is a network of lattimo (opaque white glass) threads. The mesh on the Seguso pieces are in fact an illusion created by joining two blown bubbles with filigree lines, thus creating a net-like effect. The Harrtil pieces, on the other hand, are made with a net of woven glass

Height 6.5 cm / 2.5 inches
Diameter 14 cm / 5.5 inches