a vacuum caused by the war. Art deco is usually thought to begin in the twenties at the
earliest, although individual attentive researchers have also remarked on considerably
earlier phenomena of an art deco style. I have already dealt with this problem in my book
“Wiener Werkstätte - Avantgarde, Art Deco, Industrial Design” (Vienna 1984).
A justified uneasiness about this tendency to oversimplify may mean that in future the
decades prior to the Paris Exhibition of 1925 that gave art deco its name will receive unbiased
treatment.
The glass collection of the Austrian Museum of Applied Art is like any collection in that
varying importance is attached to its individual strong points. This applies particularly to
the period between 1905-1925, as the international perspective is almost entirely missing.
Today this is only an apparent shortcoming, for there is probably no other such
comprehensive collection of this specific nature. Since the year 1979, when I assumed
responsibility for the collection of glass and ceramics, I have endeavoured to round off
this unique inventory, and have been successful in attaining my declared objective by
adopting a collecting policy which included purchases, dedications and permanent
loans. In view of the fact that the exceptional character of the existing collection iay in its
reliably established origins, the new acquisitions also had to meet these strict conditions.
Although as far as Contemporary purchases are concerned the most important Information
(year of acquisition, seller, glass works, designer, etc.) is not always quite
complete, most of it is available, and the origin of the new acquisitions therefore had to
be established beyond doubt.
After the considerable collecting by the museum around the turn of the Century, there
was a noticeable reluctance to purchase Contemporary glass in the years between 1905
and 1910. Just how much glass from the previous twenty years the Austrian museum
owned in the year 1925 will always remain to a certain extent a vague figure, as subsequent
inventories at later dates have shown that many exhibits were originally not even
entered in the inventory. Verifiable entries show that relatively few of the objects which
we know existed at the time are now missing (war losses, etc.). Wherever possibie, pictures
of such pieces have also been included.
The catalogue is divided into two parts in view of the quantity of material. The first
volume deals with cut glass, the second with the remaining types (stained, etched, engraved
and painted glass, etc.). In view of the fact that no descripfion, however detailed,
can ever replace a picture, corresponding importance has been attached to the illustrat'ons,
which are accompanied by the most important Information. The documentation
(reproductions from designs, Contemporary illustrations and photographs) has been
taken into consideration as far as space allows. Classifying the material by technical criteria
(cut, painted glass, etc.) gives us an insight into relationships such as could previously
hardly be perceived in this form. A further volume is pianned which will deal in detail
with glass-making techniques and an exhaustive documentation of Contemporary
sources.
At this juncture I should particularly like to thank Prof. Ludwig Neustifter, the head of the
Austrian Museum of Applied Art, for the knowledgeable and unselfish manner in which
he supported the realisation of this project and the exhibition “Glass 1905-1925” at the
museum and promoted the extension of the collection in every conceivable manner.
I should also like to thank Dr. Inge Woisetschläger, of the Joanneum Museum in Graz,
Styria, for her readiness to make loans to the exhibition, thus enabling the public for the
first time to see previously unknown masterpieces of the glassmaker’s art of this period.
My thanks are also due to those who made loans from private collections.
I am grateful to Harry and Peter Rath of Messrs. J. & L. Lobmeyr, Vienna, for permission
to use the company’s extensive and valuable archives.
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