Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: lettej on February 07, 2020, 01:53:56 AM
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Thank you for letting me join your message board. I am hoping that someone can help me identify the signature on this Kosta Boda twisted vase.
Thank you for your help.
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I can`t read it all, but I´m sure that it is Ulrica Hydmann Vallien.
I found other quite similar signatures from her at Google.
usually she singnes with U H Vallien and year
Monika
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I think it belongs to this
https://www.etsy.com/de/listing/493149627/kosta-boda-vase-ulrica-hydman-vallien
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Thank you for your help. I can now see that it is signed Ulrica H V with the Hydman Vallien abreviated.
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Maybe a bit easier to see in this photo.
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Super, then we got it. As I said. She was the wife of Bertil Vallien,so far I know they are divorced now. Bertie Vallien still is the head of the creativ stuff at Kost Boda.
Hope you enjoyed your first identification
Monika
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I think the second line says ARTIST COLL which presumably stands for artist collection. Can't read the last line, but as it has 5 figures it is not a year.
At https://bergdala-glastekniska-museum.se/nedladdningar.html there are 6 files of the catalogue "Artist collection" from 1992, specially made for the 250th anniversary of Kosta glassworks. (scroll down a bit; they are in alphabetical order)
At this moment I haven't got the time to look through them all, but it might be that it is in there.
Just for the general knowledge (or do I mean gossip?): Bertil Vallien and Ulrica Hydman (later Hydman-Vallien) were married in 1963. (At that time they were both designing/making pottery) They were still married when she suddenly dropped dead in their home on the 21st of March 2018. She started designing glass in 1972. She was also a painter.
Bertil Vallien was born in 1938, and considering his age I do not think he is "the head" of anything anymore, even if he is still active.
And... while I am "at it": Kosta is a village with a very old glassworks, est 1742, called Kosta glasbruk. It is still in operation.
Boda is a different village, even if quite near to Kosta. The glassworks was shut down in 2003.
KostaBoda is a trademark, but at this moment I can't verify exactly when the trademark was created. (should have been in the '90ies, methinks?)
The trademark is still in use, even if a lot of the production is outsourced to various countries - at the top of my head I recall Slovenia, Czechia, Bulgaria, Turkey and India (from what is printed on their packages).
(The same goes for Orrefors (the trademark) - the glassworks was closed in 2013, production going on in Kosta plus sevaral other countries, among which one is Slovakia.)
The ownership, cross-ownership, bankrupcies and take-overs, trade-marking etc of the "modern" glassworks in "Kingdom of crystal" - for those of you that read Swedish, https://www.glasriket.se/sv/glasrikets-historia is a good place to start. For some reason it was decided not to translate that page, so I guess https://www.glasriket.se/en/The-Glassworks is the best the official website can offer to English-speakers. (You might want to try g**le translate to get an idea of the history?)
Kerstin from Bergdala, which is a neighbour village to Kosta.
(edit typo)
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(according to collectors) 'Artist coll.' is the mark given when the designer has looked at the production and chooses some examples which they feel are 'perfect'. In many cases the rest of the collection is also sold, but without the 'Artist' mark. Sometimes ONLY the approved items are sold.