Blumenbaum (Flower Tree)

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Blumenbaum (Flower Tree)

Designer Marie Kirschner (Czech, 1852-1931)

Manufacturer Johann Loetz Witwe Glassworks (Bohemian)

Date1904

DimensionsH: 22 in. (55.9 cm)

MediumColorless glass; mold-blown, tooled, fire-polished.

ClassificationGlass

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

2004.51

Not on View

DescriptionVertical hollow form, mold-blown of colorless glass into an optic mold, tooled to form the hollow, lenticular base, cylindrical stem, and elongated conical crown of the tree. Thin concentric trails of colorless glass are applied to the top of the base and wound around two-thirds of the stem. The rim of the narrow opening at the top is fire-polished, and the pontil mark under the base is ground and polished. The conical section of the tree is drilled with nine rows of five, four, or three holes.

Label TextMarie Kirschner (Czech, 1852–1931) was a painter, teacher, and designer who studied and worked in Munich, Paris, and Vienna, as well as in her native Prague. This unusually shaped table centerpiece, designed to hold a single cut flower in each of its many holes, was exhibited at the 1904 Worlds’ Fair in St. Louis, where Kirschner won a silver medal. This was the same exposition at which the Libbey Glass Company displayed their famous cut glass punch bowl (on view in this gallery).Published ReferencesHelmut Ricke, Lötz: Bohemian Glass 1880-1940, vol. 1, New York: Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2003, p. 186, no. 153; vol. 2, p. 351, drawing no. 1090/171 (ill.).Exhibition HistorySt. Louis International Exhibition, 1904.

Vienna 1903-1932: Decorative Arts from the Wiener Werkstätte, Historical Design Gallery, New York, Spring 2002.

Toledo Museum of Art, New Acquisitions in Glass, Oct. 8 - Dec. 26, 2004.