Fine Viennese Gilt and Enamelled Glass Beaker with Pansies

#18273: Fine Viennese Gilt and Enamelled Glass Beaker with Pansies
Austrian, c.1830
Height: 12cm, diameter 8.5cm
This Viennese beaker combines gilded and cut amber-stained glass with a band of enamelled pansies, in the Biedermeier taste.
It is of flared Ranftbecher form, raised on a spreading foot cut with a ring of amber-stained lenses, or Ranft, beneath a diamond-cut band and gilt line borders. The upper body is painted in polychrome enamels with a continuous garland of pansies and foliage in shades of red, yellow, blue and white, reserved on a clear ground between scalloped gilt borders. Bands of gilt scrollwork and dotted ornament frame the floral register above and below, while the tapering lower body is cut with a broad band of diamond facets over the amber ground and encircled by gilt lines. The spreading foot is cut with a ring of tall lenses, and the underside is centred with a radiating star-cut motif.
Beakers of this type, combining cut amber staining with finely enamelled floral bands and gilt borders, were produced in Vienna during the Biedermeier period, and relate to the work of the celebrated Hausmaler (independent glass painters) active in the city in the early 19th century, whose enamelled and gilt beakers rank among the achievements of Viennese glass.
$4,800