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Posted 11 months ago
Alfredo
(345 items)
I always split my sides over the unbridled feeding frenzy unfolding anytime a piece of glass on a mount comes to market. 90% are unmarked, not silver or even bronze, but pathetic, cheap white metal, which do not deter prices from going through the roof, and pieces immediately labeled "Loetz". Even the mounts on Loetz Empire are ridiculously tacky, which does dot stop dealers and collectors from swooning.
Even more alarmingly, some are actually SCREWED into the glass, making them irremovable and therefore useless for use with other vases. And try to get rid of vases drilled for lamps or with holes for screws!
For the record, some of the marked mounts were made in noble metals (and also junk gilded white metal), by Argentor (there is a catalog), Van Heuten and Orivit (search the internet). Companies such as Rindskpof and Kralik routinely used cheap metal mounts for their glass.
My take: I want multiple use mounts, hopefully found with real cheap glass, so I don't get fleeced. I also make a mount of anything that offers a possibility. I have some metal frames that are really miraculous: they fit everything I place in them. And who cares? Perception is reality.
1. Picture of the original set: Kralik Pearl glass, showing a ridge that clearly indicates it was made for this mount. Flat scar pontil. 7" tall. Currently mountless.
2. The mount itself. Unmarked, but of reasonably good quality. 5.25" tall; 6.5" top diameter. Pads on each leg.
3. Enter the Loetz. Stunning (try tulips. A great, ageless, useful design, though collectors and dealers have been hospitalized for stress due to strictly verbotten water marks . . . ) Spit-polished pontil. A hefty 8.25" high.
4. The final match. A top shelf, look-what-I got piece. It could fool anyone . . . including newbies.
Now, for a Description: "Rare unsigned Late 30's Loetz Schaum Deco glass in an unsigned Van Heuten mount".
As I said, an endless source of picaresque amusement.
Loetz Art GlassLoetz was the premier Bohemian art glass manufacturer during the Art Nouvea…
Art DecoArt Deco was an international design and art movement in the 1920s and ’30s…
Gorgeous!!
LOL, might fool newbs... :)
Not fooled. Others could detect as well due to the presence of a foot on a vase in a mount meant for a vase without one. Prices soar on well mounted pieces regardless of metal type because people are appreciating the overall mixed media design and not necessarily the quality of the component parts. A good mount should reflect a harmony of design in which the emphasis is neither the glass or the metal, but a synergy of the two. Some pieces accomplish this task so well that it becomes impossible to conclude anything but a close design and manufacturer relationship between the major glasshouses and mount producers. Remember, during the time of the Art Nouveau the concept of gesamptkunstwerk was a predominant force in decorative and functional design. The marriage of metal and glass in well done mounted pieces encapsulate this movement of "all encompassing design."