Topic: A New Welz decor. First Example I have seen.

[obscurities]

I recently purchased this vase in an online auction. It appeared to be an example of a decor I refer to as Variegated Green Mica. A decor only previously found by myself on a red ground. It has a surface pattern which is developed using green flakes mixed with a darker glass and then blown to form a pattern over the red ground and then cased in clear. The first pic shows an example of that decor on the same shape. It appears at quick glance that the dark pattern is all mica, but an examination with a loupe reveals a mixture of the green mica flakes with a darker colored glass.

Upon receiving the piece I discovered that although it appears to have the same surface pattern, the pattern was obtained using a lighter color of glass over the orange. Although not as dark as the secondary color in the red version of this decor, the pattern was still developed using the same technique. The difference is that because the glass colors are lighter, causing the mica to be more of a granular look upon close examination. There does also appear to be a less dense use of the Mica in this colored version of the decor. Could just be this piece, but I had not seen another one before this. This is a small one in Germany, but shipping is prohibitive. These are the only 2 examples I have run across.

One difference on this example, and it is the only example I have seen this way, is that the vase does not have an applied color on the rim. Typically there is a black applique on the lip. In looking at the quality of the polishing on the rim, it appears to be factory polished, and not cut down as a repair. Standing at just over 7 inches, and 4.375 wide at the mouth, it also falls in line size wise with all of the examples in this shape I have had. I do not have any explanation for this, other than maybe just a different look.

There is a faint acid stamp provenance mark of a single line Czechoslovakia in the same small font seen on other examples of Welz in my collection. This is not a mark I consider to be a Welz mark, but one of 2 provenance marks which appear consistently on their production.

The second and third images show details of this color variant of the decor, and the last images shows other pieces in the same shape.

Craig