Imre Jakabffy (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 8. (Budapest, 1984)

VARGA, Vera: Art Nouveau art glasses

6. Vase, Ernest Léveille, c. 1895. Double layered, crackle glass, decorated with metallic oxids, gold foil and intaglio engraving. Ht. 12,5 cm. „Mazarin Blue", ,,Blue Green Satin of the Peacock Pattern". The execution of Gallé's works : studio works, individual pieces and glasses, made in smaller series and the big serial production continued colaterally. About 1900 the Gallé factory employs already 300 workers and all the types of the now so called Gallé glasses are already manufactured.

0 In contradistinction to Gallé, Tiffany was not a practizing glassmaker, but being in the possession of the knowledge of glassmaking technology he gave detailed instructions to his designer, glass-blower and decorator staffs. The functioning of the Tiffany factory was also based on the researches of specialized workshops, where teams or outstandingly qualified glassmakers were working on the solving of technical problems. The first, real Art Nouveau task was, to realize a piece of glass of floreal form, it was Thomas Manderson glassblower, who first succeeded in making it. The first successful piece was a tulip-vase. After the solving of the problem of creating floreal forms, the second step was the developing of the irizing and luster technics. Tiffany consulted numerous chemists and the workshop-experiments began under the direction of Mc.Ilhenny, who came from Philadelphia. In 1895, as the attempts at improving the glass material proved to be successful

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, Tiffany opened a new workshop, under the direction of George J. Cook. Cook created the most famous and qualified Tiffany glass types, the Lava, the Cypriote and the Peacock types of glass, until 1909.

8 The third workshop was organized in the 1890-ies, its main task was the producing of millefiori canes and glasses and the chief glassworker was James H. Grady. The production of the last, fourth workshop was also based on millefiori technic, its main profile was the making of paperweights or decorative glasses in the „paperweights style". The workshop was led by Arthur E. Saunders. By 1900 the Tiffany factory had 200 employees, the production of the year was 20.000 vases and ornamental glasses. (In case of simpler pieces the average was 4 pieces an hour.) With full knowledge of these important facts, we may declare, that most of the Art Nouveau glasses are factory products, only a few of them were produced in workshops — existed within the factories, as studios, as well — for experi-