The true glory of glass
The glassmaker’s art offers a seemingly endless range of colour and design to excite even the most casual collector
WE came to collecting art glass late, which was a mistake. So, while kitchen cupboards are full of sets of cut and hand-blown drinking glasses and assorted decanters (most of which are worthless) only two or three recent additions of the former are ever likely to pass muster.
It was dispiriting to learn, then, that the popularity of 20th century glass has never been greater. Whether floral and chintzy, cubist and angular or smooth and Scandinavian, interest is apparently at a peak.
It was even more depressing to be asked by specialist dealer Richard Hoppé if I knew about the Belgian maker Val St Lambert. I didn’t, and nor did I appreciate the relevance of the great Vonêche factory, or indeed the role Belgium played in the history of glass.
By way of educating us all, he explained that the story begins in 1802 when Napoleon encouraged French industrialist Henri D’Artigues to buy a run-down glassworks at Vonêche. The site had been in the Southern Netherlands, but France had annexed the area in 1795.
“Henri began making lead crystal glass, and was so successful that within 10 years the Vonêche factory was the most important crystal producer in the French empire,” Richard said. French chemist François Kemlin and engineer Auguste Lelièvre were the two key workers.
“Things started to go awry in 1815 after Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo,” Richard added. “The Southern Netherlands was reunited with the Dutch Republic, so Vonêche was no longer in France and import duties now became payable on anything Vonêche produced.” As a consequence, much of its market was lost.
However, in 1816 D’Artigues opened negotiations with the French king Louis XV to allow him to start a new crystal factory in France. “He bought the Verrerie de St Anne glassworks, in the small town of Baccarat, and renamed it the ‘Verrerie de Vonêche à Baccarat’ – a name it kept until 1843”, said Richard.
“Meanwhile, in 1825, Kemlin and Lelièvre decided to start a new factory in Seraing-sur-Meuse, buying an abandoned old abbey at Val St Lambert.”
Some workers transferred from Vonêche and began producing lead crystal items in 1826, while the French Revolution of 1831 pushed Vonêche into terminal decline after the French-speaking southern and Flemish-speaking northern territories became an independent country – Belgium.
“Vonêche now lost its market share in the Low Countries too, and closed shortly afterwards,” Richard said. “What had been the biggest and most successful crystal producer in Europe failed, not because of technical or managerial issues, but because of political change.”
Its demise led directly to the creation of other lead crystal factories at Baccarat, while that at Val St Lambert grew and flourished.
Kemlin and Lelièvre made numerous technical improvements to production, including the use of coal for the fusion process. They obtained authorisation for a “Société anonyme des Manufactures de Glaces, Verres à Vitre, Cristaux et Gobeleteries” and counted William I among their stockholders, who owned five shares each valued at 5,000 florins.
“The factory reached its pinnacle shortly before the First World War, when more than 5,000 people made about a 160,000 crystal items a day,”
Richard says: “The crystal vases and other decorative elements found their way to houses all over the world and their exports perhaps exceed those of any other brand.”
Among their leading designers were Leon Ledru (1855-1926) who worked alongside some of the most influential figures in Belgium Art Nouveau, notably Victor Horta (1861-1947) and Henry van de Velde (18631957) who was the chief designer from 1886 to 1926.
Glass decorated with geometric and curved patterns by Ledru and Joseph Simon (1874-1960) was exhibited by the factory at the 1925 Paris Exhibition as part of the Arts Decoratifs de Paris Collection and went on to win the prestigious Grand Prix.
Joseph Simon was appointed chief designer in 1926 and was responsible for a range of transparent, cased Art Deco glass with slashed intaglio patterns. These feature the factory mark and an ‘S’ and are among those later wares noted for their straight lines and naturalistic motifs on thicker, heavier pieces. Colour contrasts became stronger and more dramatic, used on clear and black glass.
Simon was followed in 1929 by Charles Graffart (18931967) whose designs featured deeply cut, abstract designs on imposing vases, sometimes with impressive gold and engraved work.
“Above all, Val Saint Lambert crystal was famous for its purity and exceptional brilliance,” Richard explains. “Val Saint Lambert cased glass embodies great craftsmanship in wheel cutting over the laminated layers of several tints.
“Colourful jewel effects gleam through the varying depths of the cuts, changing with every light focus, and characteristics are a peculiar ring and a unique limpidity, while gossamer designs and lacy traceries were accentuated by shallow wheel engraving.”
The factory was hit badly by the Depression of the 1930s, and sales declined heavily, but despite this, Val St Lambert continued to produce some of the best colour overlay crystal in the world.
During the 1970s, under the dynamic leadership of supervisor, Louis Leloup (born 1929), Val embraced art glass, employing the talents of leading designers such as the painter Georges Collignon (1923-2009), American glass artist Samuel Herman (born 1936), and Czech glass sculptor Jan Zoritchak (born 1944).
Such was the factory’s importance to Belgium that the government subsidised production until 1987 when a Belgian manager bought the factory and succeeded in making it relatively successful again.
Today the plant produces a total of 1,400 different items ranging from vases to ashtrays.