Traveling Beaker Set with Butterflies

Image Not Available

Expand

IIIFView PDF

Traveling Beaker Set with Butterflies

ManufacturerPROBABLY Workshop of Samuel Mohn (German)

Place of OriginBohemia

Dateabout 1825-1835

DimensionsH: 4 3/16 in. (10.7 cm); Max Diam: 3 7/8 in. (9.8 cm)

MediumGlass; blown, enameled, gilded, cut, and polished.

ClassificationGlass

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

Object number

2004.14A-F

On View

Toledo Museum of Art Glass Pavilion (2444 Monroe Street), Glass Pavilion Gallery, 4

DescriptionThe set consists of six nesting drinking glasses of colorless glass that are painted in transparent enamels with butterflies and flies. Five of the glasses are of cylindrical form (so-called Walzengläser), while the smallest one has a waisted bell form with a conical foot. They are designed to travel nested together. The band of forget-me-nots and painted insects (butterflies and flies) is typical for the early Biedermeier period. The set has been previously attributed to Russia, but this floral garland already appears on glasses from Warmbrunn, Silesia, in the late 18th century, and continues to be popular into the 1830s. The expert execution of the decoration equals that of the best workshops, such as those of Samuel Mohn in Dresden, and his son S. Gottlob Mohn and Anton Kothgasser, in Vienna. A similar example is attributed to Samuel Mohn in Brigitte Klesse, Glassammlung Helfried Krug, pp. 328-329, no. 381, his sale sold at Sotheby's, 15 November 1982, lot 512. Butterflies are mentioned in Mohn's Preiscourant (see Gustav E. Pazaurek, Gläser der Empire and Biedermeierzeit, 1923, p. 164.) Samuel Mohn advertises in the "Leipziger Intelligenzblatt" of 1811 beakers enameled with specific butterflies, such as the swallowtail (Papilion machaon) of a mourning cloak (Nymphalis antiopa) for 2 Thaler each, and a large, blue-iridescent butterfly for 2 1/2 Thaler. Such glasses have been recorded in the inventory of the kitchen at Terfort Castle near Weimar Germany (Pazaurek, p. 165). A nesting set of five cylindrical beakers with engraved stylized decoration near the rim with fitted leather case is in the Conring Museum of Glass (unpublished).

Published ReferencesMasterpieces of European Glass 1500-1900, A Selection from the Hida Takayama Museum of Art, sale, Sotheby's, London, 19 December 2002, lot 73. (Unsold.)

Glas, sale, Auktionshaus Dr.Fischer, Heilbronn, 22nd October 1994, lot 1109.

Exhibition HistoryToledo Museum of Art, New Aquisitions in Glass, Oct. 8 - Dec. 26, 2004.

Milwaukee Art Museum; Vienna Albertina; Berlin, Deutsches Historiches Museum; Paris, Musée du Louvre, Biedermeier: The Invention of Simplicity, 2006-2007, (English catalog), no. 8, p. 358, repr. (col.) fig. 152, p. 207. [Note: accession number is incorrectly noted as 2004.1]

Paris, Musée du Louvre, Biedermeier: de l' artisanat au design Vienne et Prague 1815-1830, 2007-2008, no. 105, repr. p. 174 (col.).