Lobmeyr Gilt and Enamelled Champagne Coupe

Vienna, c. 1877
Enamelled and gilt glass
Stock no.: A5944

Provenance: From the estate of a renowned US glass specialist (1936-2024), who advised the Smithsonian and Corning museums.

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A glass champagne coupe with a splayed foot and shallow bowl, decorated with polychrome enamels. Cartouches contain couplets by the Persian poet Hafez:

'Oh Cup-bearer, set my glass afire / With the light of wine! Oh minstrel, sing: The world fulfilleth my heart's desire.'

The vessel is decorated with gold, blue, red, and white vegetal and geometric ornamentation. The underside of the foot is enamelled in white with the distinctive JLL monogram.

The Lobmeyr factory was founded by Josef Lobmeyr in 1822, naming the company after his sons Josef and Ludwig.¹ It was under Ludwig’s direction that the company began to experiment with orientalist enamelled glassware. International expositions throughout the second half of the 19th century had fuelled European interest in the East. At Lobmeyr’s first World Fair, the 1862 International Exhibition in London, he would have seen, for example, neo-Mamluk mosque lamps by Philippe-Joseph Brocard.²

Lobmeyr began to experiment with orientalist glass in 1870, when an Indian-style service was produced.³ The glass was decorated with patterns drawn from Albert Racinet’s 1869 L’ornement polychrome. An Arabian and Persian series, to which this champagne coupe belongs, followed soon after. It also features patterns drawn from not only the Arabian and Persian pages of Racinet, but also the ‘Moorish’ and Greek sections. The teardrop cartouche on the foot of this vessel, for example, features Persian metalwork motifs illustrated in Racinet PL. XXI.⁴ The closest source material is a Mamluk Syrian tazza, or footed bowl, made in the mid 13th century, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession no. 91.1.1538).

Designed by the architects Franz Schmoranz and Johann Machytka, the series was manufactured between 1876 and 1878. In 1883, the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts (today known by its German name MAK) opened an Arabian gallery, designed by Schmoranz and Machytka and populated with pieces from their Lobmeyr series.⁵

Several other examples from this series are found in the Corning Museum of Glass, New York State (accession nos 73.3.18, 79.3.850, 2003.3.31 B).
[1] Noever, Peter (ed.) J. & L. Lobmeyr. Zwischen Tradition und Innovation. Gläser aus der MAK-Sammlung. Vienna: MAK and Prestel Verlag, 2006. p. 17.
[2] Ibid. p. 35-36.
[3] Ibid. p. 36.
[4] Racinet, Albert. L’ornement polychrome: cent planches en couleurs, or et argent contenant environ 2.000 motifs de tous les styles. Paris : Librairie de Firmin-Didot, 1888 (3rd edition).
[5] Noever. Op. Cit. p. 38.

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