Loetz Vase Arno Richter PG 358 ca. 1901

Arno Richter, a pupil of Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann at the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts, created several designs for glass vases produced by Johann Loetz Witwe. The form of the present vase is documented by a pattern template preserved in the Loetz cutting archive. The design was commissioned by the glass retailer E. Bakalowits. As a patron and supporter of contemporary art, its director, Wilhelm Bakalowits, commissioned young representatives of the Viennese avant-garde to create designs for art glass and lighting. Among them were Josef Hoffmann, Koloman Moser, Leopold Bauer, and Arno Richter.
The vase bears the Phenomen Genre 358 decor, designed by Franz Hofstötter for the Paris World Exposition of 1900. The decor is characteristic of Hofstötter’s highly stylized, nature-inspired compositions, which evoke atmospheric and landscape impressions through simplified forms.
The vessel is composed of a thin opal-glass underlayer with a colorless outer layer, broadly encased in colorless, veined silver-yellow glass and irregularly distorted. Beneath the rim, an orange-red application interwoven with silver-yellow extends across the body in short, tongue-like projections, while a dark brown application of similar character appears in the lower section, likewise incorporating silver-yellow. Horizontal bands of color, progressing from a dark ground through bluish and yellow tones to glowing red, evoke the distant horizon beneath a luminous, reddish sky. The iridescent surface further enhances this atmospheric effect.
The body of the vase is articulated by six vertically oriented applied elements, lending the form a pronounced rhythmic structure characteristic of Richter’s designs.