"Slottsglas" Footed Bowl

In 1916 Orrefors Glasbruk hired Simon Gate as its principal designer. Trained as a painter and an illustrator, Gate had no previous experience as a designer of three-dimensional objects. Unhampered by tradition or convention, he became one of the most innovative and influential figures in the early development of twentieth-century art glass. This footed bowl—blown by Knut Bergqvist, master glassblower at Orrefors to the design of Gate—typifies his slottsglas, or "castle glass," series, elegant pieces characterized by subtle delicacy in both form and color. The sinuous fluting of the bowl and foot creates pleasing gradations in the translucency of the gray-green glass. At the same time, the piece dramatically explores the technical limits of glassblowing: the extreme fragility of the thin walls and attenuated stem enhances the illusion that such glass was designed to be used in the appropriately refined environment of a castle or its domestic equivalent.