Vase aux Poissons (Fisch vase)

After having taken courses at the Nancy and Paris Schools of Fine Arts while he was working for Daum as a modelist, in 1913 Charles Schneider and his brother Ernest acquired a glassworks facility located in Epinay-sur-Seine to open their own studios. Though the launch of their activities was quickly interrupted by the beginning of WWI, they were able to restart working intensively as of 1918, with the creation of two distinct artistic and commercial lines, Schneider and Le Verre Français; both lines were characterised by vivid, powerful and contrasted colours, which perfectly matched the Art Déco and Inter-War Period styles.

Nonetheless, unlike up-market glassware from the Schneider line, items from the Le Verre Français brand seem to be much more common and rather cheap. With their naturalistic and stylised decors, they however were very successful on the other side of the Atlantic. Belonging to the second category, our Vase aux Poissons is signed with the term Charder, which is a contraction of Charles Schneider, one he used as of 1927. Though this was a model used on vases of many different shapes, the reddish colour of the fish incised by acid on a light blue background, remining us of water, seems to be recurrent.  Purchased by the glassware collector Barlach Heuer and presented for five consecutive years in the Schneider - Les enfants d’une oeuvre travelling exhibition that started off in the Sarreguemines Museum in 2012, this vase with its very well executed animal designs was donated to the Conches Glass Museum in 2018 by Barlach Heuer and his children.