Having seen Ivo's comment re. pâte-de-verre on another thread
currently the only producers are Daum and The Grand from Taiwan.
I thought I'd just bring some other manufacturers of pâte-de-verre to light. Currently there are a number of firms in mainland China who use the technique. Their wares are almost never seen in the west as it seems that western retailers are unwilling to source these high cost pieces - I know, I've tried selling them here - hence why we generally get only the cheap & nasty end of Chinese glass.
Shenzhen Best Arts Industrial Co. http://www.bestarts.com.cn/ also at
http://bestarts.win.mofcom.gov.cn/en/plate01/product_list.asp produce a range of pieces, often sold under the name 'Liu-Li Story'. In fact Liu-Li is the name often used in China to describe pâte-de-verre. It's an old term which translates literally as 'coloured glaze', it's modern usage is likely due to it's adoption by Liuligongfang in Taiwan in the 80s/90s. However, potential collectors need to be wary as not all Liu-Li is really pâte-de-verre, sometimes the name is also applied to press moulded or mould-blown glass with a satin finish. Likewise, many of these giftware firms which produce pate-de-verre also make or sell similar figures in polyresin, meaning that handling an item is a must.
Jin Bo Gong Yuan near Wenzhou were also making pâte-de-verre when I visited their works in 2007. I was lucky enough to see all the stages of the production process from the sculpting of a clay model, taking an elastomer mould of this to be used for casting wax positives which were then further hand finished before being used to form the final plaster moulds. The glass itself was bought in in the form of coloured discs which arrived by the sackfull, these were then crushed on site to give appropriate size chunks or powders, depending on what was required. I'm not sure if Jin Bo are still producing these wares, however, their website
http://jbgyp.cn.alibaba.com no longer shows glass figures, though some are shown in my gallery here:
http://glassgallery.yobunny.org.uk/thumbnails.php?album=686 The eagle & Horse's head are bothshown on page 5 of their 2007 catalogue.
Other Chinese firms which were advertising pâte-de-verre in the late 2000s include
Shanghai San Shan Arts & Crafts Co. Ltd. and
Xiang Yu Fine Crafts (I don't have web addresses but do have a printed catalogues dating from around 2006/7 for both firms).
Topic: Chinese Pate-de-Verre (Read 4649 times)
