FRANTISEK PAZOUREK (Czechoslovakia, 1905-1997), for SCHLEVOGT. Bohemia, ca. 1940.
Vase "Grape Harvest", Art Deco period, in malachite moulded glass, green.
Provenance: Private collection, Spain between 1970-1990.
Measurements: 13 cm (height); 7,5 cm (largest diameter).
American-born Curt Schlevogt established his own company focusing on the export of pearls from Jablonec in 1928. In the following years, however, his company also became heavily involved in the production of artistic glassware (tiny objects of applied glass made by moulding or blowing). This was probably caused by his son, Henry Günther Schlevogt, who was extensively involved in the introduction of this type of production at the Jablonec export company A. Sachs & Co. as its representative in the USA.
At the 1934 spring fair in Leipzig, the Schlevogt company presented its moulded glass collection under the brand name "Ingrid". The collection was opened and gradually received new patterns. The most artistically impressive ones were the result of the company's collaboration with prominent artists such as Ladislav P?enosil, Zden?k Juna, František Pazourek, Artur Pleva, M. Petrucci, E. Rottenberg and many others. The company gained fame and favour among glass lovers mainly for its fashionable glass materials, jade, turquoise jade and lapis lazuli, of which a significant part of the collection was moulded at the Josef Riedl glassworks in Polubný. A supreme example of the artistic efforts of the Schlevogt company was its "ArtisticCrystallery-Ingrid" catalogue, which included figurative sculptures awarded the Grand Prix at the 1937 World Exhibition in Paris. Among the conventional Art Nouveau and Rococo models, functionalist designs or, eventually, variations on the Art Deco style and Bruno Mauder's designs (vases, jugs) predominated.