Multicolour Iridescent Art Glass Vase in the Style of Loetz, Austrian circa 1970

A handsome art glass vase of baluster form, its surface animated by a swirling iridescent decoration of deep fuchsia-magenta, forest green, and gold — colours that shift and ripple across the glass as the light changes, lending the piece a living, chromatic restlessness entirely characteristic of the Austrian iridescent glass tradition. The form is classical in its proportions: a rounded, full-bellied body rises from a slightly splayed foot to a gently narrowing neck, the whole silhouette at once dignified and sensuous.

The piece is described as being in the style of Lötz Witwe (Loetz), the celebrated glassworks of Klašterský Mlýn in Bohemia (present-day Czech Republic) that, under the direction of Max von Spaun from the 1880s, revolutionised European decorative glass with its celebrated iridescent “Papillon”, “Phenomen”, and “Crete” ranges. The metallic, oil-on-water iridescence pioneered by Loetz was achieved through the application of metallic oxide vapours to the glass surface — a process that produced the miraculous shifting colour effects that made Loetz the supreme exemplar of Art Nouveau glass and a byword for luxury and technical mastery. This later Austrian piece, produced circa 1970, is indebted to that tradition without being of it, carrying forward the aesthetic of shimmering iridescent colour in a form that reads comfortably as a decorative object of the postwar period.

The swirling colour arrangement — wave-like bands of crimson-purple and olive green with golden iridescent highlights — creates a surface of remarkable visual complexity and beauty. Against a window or under directed light, the vase glows with the depth of a piece of fine stone. Austrian craftwork, circa 1970.