Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
[Dedo von Kerssenbrock-Krosigk]: Here we are in the area, a very monumental late-19th century
cut glass objects. And the table and the cut glass boat that you are currently looking
at is stunning, first of all, because it is obviously very, very heavy. And you can see
that the boat rests on a very thick marble plate, which probably is not just for compositional
reasons, but it just has to be so thick in order to hold the boat. And in contrast to
that, the glass being colorless delivers a very light appearance, so if you imagine that
same table made of oak wood, it would definitely look much heavier and much bulkier. In the
late-19th century, there was competition among many big factories for crystal, for making
the largest furniture imaginable, and the most elaborate cutting on it. This table was
made in 1889, and was displayed at that time in a showroom of Baccarat in Paris. It is
not quite known how many of these tables have been made, but we know of at least of two
of them – one, actually also in combination with a boat, was the property of Liberace.
The boat has been made slightly later for the Paris World Fair in 1900, and designed
by the sculptor Charles Vital Cornu, a Frenchman. There seems no apparent use for the boat.
One could imagine that it is a kind of a punchbowl, but the intention is just to have a huge glass
sculpture displayed. And especially at World Fairs, that made very good sense because these
fairs took place in huge halls, and many companies competed for the attention of the visitors.
And so it was important to have some sort of signature pieces, which were visible from
far away and attracted the attention of the visitors.