Ancient Splendor
Artist: Edris Eckhardt (American, 1905-1998)
Date: 1962
Dimensions:
12 x 21 in. (30.5 x 53.3 cm)
Medium: transparent multi-colored glass, bronze
Classification: Glass
Credit Line: Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey
Object number: 2005.22
Label Text:Cleveland artist Edris Eckhardt is renowned as an early leader in 20th-century American ceramics and glass. The sculpture captures the aesthetic of the period through its random array of more than 150 glass “gems” fused into bronze “settings,” its bejeweled splendor evoking an ancient civilization. Ancient Splendor was the centerpiece of Eckhardt’s 1968 retrospective at The Corning Museum of Glass and is considered one of her two most important sculptures.
DescriptionSolid chunks of colored glass are crushed and embedded into openings cut into a rectangular sheet of sculpted wax relief forming a base that is burned out and replaced by cast bronze. Two rod-like supports of decreasing diameter extend from the bottom of the piece. The whole is mounted on a rectangular base of wood. The front of the relief is densely packed with protruding gem-like settings forming bezels and prongs that enclose drops, blobs, and small shards of colored glass. A rectangular, slightly concave surface near the right edge is inscribed vertically with a stylus before casting "Edris Eckhardt 1962." The name "Edris Eckhardt" is also inscribed in block letters horizontally in the edge of the plaque near the right corner.
Not on view
In Collection(s)