Art Nouveau Loetz Cobalt Papillon Art Glass Vase

Product Details

Art Nouveau Loetz Cobalt Papillon art glass vase in a Britannia metal frame.

10 1/8” (25.8cm) high, 8” (20.3cm) across the handles.

$11,000.

The Loetz glassworks were founded by Johann Loetz in Klostermuhle, Bohemia in 1840.  Although Loetz died in 1848, the glassworks continued under his widow’s direction as Glasfabrik Johann Loetz-Witwe (the Widow Johann Loetz Glassworks).  By the 1880s Loetz had acquired the reputation as a manufacturer of innovative glass, both on technique and design, produced under the direction of Loetz’s grandson, Max Ritter von Spaun.  

Loetz glass was well enough established to exhibit at the 1889 World Exposition in Paris and in the 1893 Columbia World’s Fair in Chicago.

In 1898, after several years of experimentation with variations in firing, Spaun perfected and patented the technique to produce the deep blue/gold metallic lustre.  It was named “Cobalt Papillon” for its resemblance to the wings of butterflies and the colour of cobalt blue with violet hues.