Topic: Can you identify timeframe and/or maker for this schwarzlot bowl?

[albglass]

I bought a schwarzlot decorated bowl last month in Grenoble, France, in a strange little antiques store while on vacation. The store owner was not a glass collector, and could tell me nothing about it except that it "looks old."  The bowl's hunting scene is hand painted in a fine black enamel (schwarzlot), with variations in shading even to the point of some filled in areas so thin that they are almost a transparent grey. There are two hunters, 4 dogs, and one stag.  One of the dogs is biting at the rump of the stag. The scene shows incredibly fine detail, with folds of the fabric and individual fingers clearly delineated.  The rim of the bowl has a rich blue, rich red, and gold hand-painted design around a ruffled rim.  There is also gold paint on highlights in the design--the collars of the dogs, the buttons on the coat, along the cuffs and collars of the clothes, along the tree trunks, and splashed among the leaves. The bottom has a fairly large polished pontil with heavy wear on the 2 sides of the bowl where it rests on the surface (it is not perfectly flat, but not too badly off).  The rim on the bowl seems to indicate that this may be a late 1800s bowl where they were doing the decoration in the earlier schwarzlot style, but I am only guessing.  I would dearly love to have some idea as to when this piece could have been made and in what part of Europe (Bohemia?).  Identifying the actual factory is probably impossible. Thanks for any insights you can provide.

[albglass]

The identification of this bowl is getting even more convoluted.  If you look at Bloch-Dermant's English translation book The Art of French Glass 1860-1914, there is a picture of a cup decorated with a stag-hunt scene.  It is captioned as an Emile Galle piece from 1878, inspired by Bohemian glass.  The stag-hunt scene is identical to that on my bowl--I am not talking about similar--it is absolutely identical.  Only the foliage of the trees is different around the stag scene. Now I don't know what to think.  The scene on my bowl is definitely enameled--did they copy Galle's piece? Or did Galle copy my piece?  Or is this another of Galle's early pieces?  The plot thickens...

[Ivo]

I held back on this one as the decoration does not seem to match the bowl - for which you now have found an adequate explanation. The style of decoration is 18th ct. Bohemian (note the tricorn hats?) but the shape of the bowl is a good 100 years later. So made in France end of the 19th ct. hawking back to a Bohemian style of 100 years earlier makes perfect sense. If it was made by the Gallé furnaces or not is impossible to say.

[oldglassman]

 Lobmeyr also produced Schwarzlot wares might be worth looking at them ,

Peter.

[albglass]

Thanks so much for your insights.  It would certainly make sense that this was done around 1880 when there was some interest in reviving historical styles.  I am aware of several Bohemian glassmakers that revived Schwarzlot decoration--Lobmeyr (as you mentioned), Meyr's Neffe, and Steinschonau, probably others, but the examples in the French book alerted me to the possibility that this could be French.  The book referred to the decoration as grisalle. I am wondering if the border of the bowl could be a clue to whether it is French or Bohemian.  I have the Louvre book on French faience and some of the borders on the Strasbourg faience pieces are the same as used on this bowl.  Is there a way to distinguish Bohemian schwarzlot from French grisalle, or are they just different words for the same technique?