Art Deco Harrach Basalt Glass Vase with Dancing Girl Motif

At 37 cm tall, this Harrach basalt glass vase with its finely rendered neo-classical dancing girl motif and warm amber-brown accents has the graphic boldness and sculptural poise that characterise the best interwar Bohemian art glass, the deep black of the basalt glass body providing a ground against which the dancing figure reads with the clarity of a silhouette cut from a frieze.

Made by Harrach of Czechoslovakia, one of the great Bohemian glasshouses, and dating to circa 1925 to 1935, this vase is a product of one of the most creatively fertile periods in European decorative glass. The Harrach glassworks, founded in Novy Svet in Bohemia in 1712, was by the interwar period one of the most technically accomplished and artistically ambitious glass producers in Europe, and its Art Deco output combined the graphic boldness of the new design movement with the deep technical traditions of Bohemian glassmaking. The basalt glass body, a dense opaque black glass, gives the vase a weight and authority that clear or coloured glass could not achieve, and the amber-brown accents, applied to the rim and foot of the piece, provide a warm counterpoint to the severity of the black body. The neo-classical dancing girl motif, rendered in relief or applied decoration against the black ground, draws on the figure tradition that ran through Art Deco design from its earliest manifestations, connecting the modernist aesthetic of the 1920s and 1930s to the classical world. The piece is in very good condition throughout.

• Maker: Harrach, Czechoslovakia
• Dimensions: 37 cm (H) x 12 cm (W)
• Condition: Very Good
• Features: Black basalt glass body, amber-brown accents to rim and foot, neo-classical dancing girl motif
• Period: Circa 1925 to 1935
• SKU: CBD-0001

A refined and highly collectible piece of interwar Bohemian glass from one of the great Bohemian glasshouses. Pairs naturally with the Art Deco cream lady figurine and the wider Art Deco collection.