Jugenstil Art Glass & Bronze Fruit Bowl by Loetz Witwe Company, ca. 1900

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Jugenstil Art Glass & Bronze Fruit Bowl by Loetz Witwe Company, ca. 1900:
$1350.00

Jugenstil Fruit Bowl

of \"Bubble\" Glass Rimmed in Patinated Bronze

by Loetz Witwe Company, ca. 1900

This magnificent fruitbowl of green \"bubble\" glass rimmed in patinated bronze,

elegantlydesigned in the best Austrian Jugenstil traditions,

is a superb example of anart glass object produced

by the famous Loetz Witwe Company around 1900,

duringits most flourishing period.

The vase is in fineantique condition, and has no chips, cracks, or repairs.

No visible signatureor markings.

MEASUREMENTS

Max.height: 7 1/4 inches

Radius:11 inches

AboutJUGENSTIL

Jugendstil,artistic style thatarose in Germanyabout the mid-1890s and continued through the first decade of the 20th century,deriving its name from the Munich magazine Die Jugend (“Youth”), which featuredArt Nouveaudesigns. Two phases can be discerned in Jugendstil: an early one, before 1900,that is mainly floral in character, rooted in English Art Nouveau and Japaneseapplied arts and prints; and a later, more abstract phase, growing out of theViennese work of the Belgian-born architect and designer Henry van deVelde. Though the Art Nouveau began in London, it is also known as\"Jugendstil\" in Austria and Germany, as Modernismo in Spain, and asStile Liberty in Italy.

The term Art Nouveau refers to anavant-garde art movement, which began in Western Europe around 1880. With thisstyle, artists rebelled against the way of classic art. It is a style inarchitecture, sculpture, paintings, and the applied and decorative arts.Artists and architects were proud to be craftsmen at the same time an ArtNouveau artist often mastered different artistic skills This is why this stylecan be found in a variety of forms especially in the decorative arts untiltoday.

The style is ornamental and asymmetricaland artists used dreamlike and exotic forms with symbols of sexuality, death,and resurrection. It was influenced by the newly in fashion Japanese Art, bythe English poet-painter William Blake and also by the Pre-Raphaelites.

AboutLOETZ WITWE COMPANY & ITS GLASS

In 1836, Johann Eisner established aglassworks in the Southern Bohemian town of Klostermühle, today part of theCzech Republic and called Klášterský Mlýn. His heirs sold the glassworks toMartin Schmid in 1849, and two years later Schmid sold it to Frank Gerstner,attorney-at-law, and his wife Susanne. Susanne was the widow (‘Witwe’ inGerman) of Johann Loetz, a glassmaker about whom we know very little.
Gerstner transferred sole ownership to Susanne shortly before his death in1855, and she successfully led and expanded the company during the subsequent20 years, manufacturing mainly crystal, overlay and painted glass.
In 1879, Susanne transferred the company – now called \"Johann Loetz Witwe\"– to Maximilian von Spaun, the son of her daughter Karoline. One year later,von Spaun hired Eduard Prochaska and the two of them had modernized the factoryand introduced a new, patented techniques and processes.

TheHistoricist Period

The first fruits of this collaborationwere exciting innovations in Historicism glass, including Intarsia and Octopusglass and the very popular marbled (‘marmorisierte’) glass which imitatedsemi-precious stones like red chalcedony, onyx and malachite. Success atexhibitions in Brussels, Munich and Vienna were crowned by awards at the ParisWorld’s Exposition in 1889.

In 1897, von Spaun first saw TiffanyFavrile glass exhibited in Bohemia and Vienna, and this convinced him that theart nouveau style was also the way to go for Loetz Witwe. The next eight yearswere to be the most artistically significant and profitable period in theentire history of the company.

TheArt Nouveau Period – the Glory Years

The Loetz glassworks created largenumbers of its own new designs of iridescent, trailing art nouveau glass,sometimes in collaboration with well-known artists and designers like MarieKirschner and Franz Hofstötter (aka Franz Hofstätter). The zenith of Loetz artnouveau glass was epitomized by the so-called Phänomen series of designs, muchof it designed by Hofstötter, which won a Grand Prix (alongside Tiffany, Gallé,Daum and Lobmeyr) at the Paris World’s Exposition in 1900.
The company’s success during this period had two prime drivers – the technicalexpertise of Prochaska and the business acumen of von Spaun. Loetz Witwecreated many of its own designs, and also supplied glass commissioned by majorcustomers like E. Bakolowits (Vienna) and Max Emanuel (London).

TheDawn of Art Deco – a Difficult Transition

Although 1904 saw yet another award, aGrand Prix at the St. Louis World’s Fair, sales started to lose momentum asinterest in Phänomen glass waned. New artistic impulses were needed tocompensate for a lack of in-house innovation, and Loetz Witwe intensified itscollaboration with Viennese designers like Leopold Bauer, Otto Prutscher andJosef Hoffmann before, in 1909, appointing Adolf Beckert – a specialist foretched decoration - as its new artistic director. In the same year, von Spauntransferred management of the glassworks to his son, Maximilian Robert.
Maximilian Robert was less effective n managing the glassworks than his fatherhad been, and financial problens worsened culminating in Loetz Witwe declaringbancruptcy in 1911. Injections of von Spaun family money and the continuingefforts of Prochaska meant that the glassworks could still operate, noticeablywith etched designs by Hoffmann, Hans Bolek and Carl Witzmann, but the companywas dealt another blow when Beckert left in 1913. The new etched designs plusnewly introduced Tango glass were shown at the Deutsche Werkbund exhibtion in1914, but then came the doubly blow of a major fire at the glassworks and theoutbeak of the First World War.

TheDecline and Fall of Loetz

After the war, temporary respite wasachieved thanks to the production of popular colored opal glass, but thenunavoidable investments in renovation of the glassworks in 1920 led to newfinancial problems. Lacking new ideas, Loetz Witwe reverted to adapting itsold, art nouveau decors to the art deco style, and to making old-fashioned andlow-quality cameo glass and glass animals; but sales continued to decline.

The Great Depression in the late twentiesand another fire in 1930 hit the company hard, and during the thirties theglassworks changed ownership several times, often had to close down for longperiods and finally declared bankruptcy once more in 1939, following the Germaninvasion of Czechoslovakia. The glassworks manufactured utilitarian glasswarefor the Third Reich throughout the war, but then ultimately closed downcompletely in 1947.