PALLME KÖNIG. Austria, ca.1910.
Art Nouveau centre, ca.1910.
Blown glass. Relief enamels. Silver-plated metal mouthpiece.
Provenance: Private Spanish collection, formed between 1970 and 1995.
Measurements: 10 x 23 x 23 cm.
Centre in blown glass, decorated with enamels depicting sinuous water lilies floating amidst typically Art Nouveau delicacies.
The Pallme glassworks was first established in Steinschonau, Austria, in about 1786 by Ignaz Pallme-Konig. In the 1880s and 1890s, Ignaz Pallme-Konig's firm manufactured and exported high-quality chandeliers and etched glass. Around the turn of the century they merged with Wilhelm Habel's Elizabethhutte glass factory near Teplitz and became known as "Glasfabrik Elisabeth, Pallme-Konig and Habel".
During the Art Nouveau period, this glass company produced high quality iridised glass, and its finest production was of the type illustrated on the left. Hot glass trails were wound around the iridised glass to form a network, and the piece was blown into a mould so that the trails were pressed against the glass.
Elizabethhutte's production was and still is highly appreciated in Austria. The production of this beautiful and highly specialised type of design continued until the early 1920s. Pallme-Konig vases often have cut-outs in the top and folded pieces in a way that emphasises the once molten nature of the glass.
There were several factories with the Pallme-Konig name and many of them continued to produce glass until the industry was nationalised after the end of the war in Europe (1945). Pallme-Konig and Habel glass is not usually signed, and does not normally have a pontil mark. The entire vase, with its molten traces on the surface, was usually blown into a mould and then finished from the top.