Vase

Published in 1935 in the first sales catalogue presenting the new business branch of artistic glass launched by the Verreries de Saint-Prex (1928-1964), this model also appears in unpublished catalogues dated between 1931 and 1935. The Vitromusée Romont owns three examples, ranging from green glass to crackled gold and gilded floral decoration.

To obtain the crackled coating, blue enamel is first applied on the mould blown vase using an airbrush and the piece is then fired. After cooling, the enamel is covered with a thin layer of gilding, which is fixed by annealing the piece. During this second firing, the melting point of the two materials is not the same, which generates the cracked look.

This vase is emblematic of Saint-Prex due to its crackled gold decoration, but also because of its shape, which is part of the iconic representation of the Saint-Prex collection of artistic glass that adorns the façade of its glassworks since 1947 (see photo below). Two other similar models, one with a more curved body and one with a slenderer shape, diversified the collection, which was aimed primarily at a female clientele.

Already well known in ancient Rome and during the Renaissance, and then rediscovered by the avant-garde movements of the 20th century, this type of vase became widespread in Europe and the United States in the 1920s and 1930s, reflecting the enthusiasm for the tulip shape at the time.

For the launch of the new artistic collection, the glassworks management opted for well-known designers. The ceramist Paul Ami Bonifas was asked to work with the Verreries in 1931. In the monograph devoted to him by Edmond Beaujon, Bonifas recalls: “With a view to the Salon fédéral des Beaux-Arts et des Arts Appliqués to be held in Geneva in 1931, the Verreries de Saint-Prex asked me to design the models it intended to present to the jury and to oversee their manufacture. For two months, I had the pleasure of working with a highly skilled craftsman, a glassmaker from northern Italy who had trained in Murano. Our material was none other than ordinary bottle glass.”

The presence of this unknown Italian glassmaker in Saint-Prex also suggests a link with contemporary glass arts. As artistic director of Vetri Soffiati Muranesi Cappellin Venini & Co. from 1921 to 1925, the artist Vittorio Zecchin (1878-1947) proposed several variations on the theme of the tulip shape. Equipped with a foot or pedestal, the shape may be slender like a flute, or broad and curved – ideas that are also found in the Saint-Prex catalogues. The creations from Murano, shown at the Paris and Monza exhibitions in 1922 and 1923, demonstrate the contemporary appeal of the tulip shape, and Bonifas was also inspired by this harmoniously curved shape in his ceramics. He combines the design aspects that are dear to him with contemporary glassmaking expertise.