Marie Kirschner (Czech-Austrian-German, Prague 1852-1931 Kosatky)
Kännchen (jug or cream pitcher)
1901-02
cobalt-underlaid colorless glass; model-blown with fused handle
height 14,2 cm (5.5 inches)
on bottom, engraved monogram: MK
manufactured by Johann Lötz Witwe, Klostermühle, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary
References:
Helmut Ricke, Ernst Ploil, et al., Lötz. Böhmisches Glas 1880-1940 (Ostfildern-Ruit 2003), pg. 183, ill. 147.
Helmut Ricke, Ernst Ploil, et al., Lötz. Katalog der Musterschnitte, Vol. 2 (Munich 1989), pg. 340, prod. no. Com. 190/36.
Discussion:
The pioneering German-Czech artist Marie Kirschner (Prague 1852-1931 Kosatky) was the older sister of the novelist Ossip Schubin (Aloisia Kirschner), whose portrait by Karl Gussow is owned by The Daulton Collection. From 1889, Marie lived with her sister in Berlin and summered in Bohemia. Oh, what a pair they must have been!
Marie Kirschner trained as a painter in Munich and Paris, where she studied with Jules Dupré and Alfred Stevens. However, she later turned to applied arts, particularly glass design. And it is for her glasswork, produced by Johann Lötz (Loetz) Witwe of Klostermühle, Bohemia, the important Art Nouveau glass manufacturer, that she is most highly regarded.
Although Marie Kirschner’s glass designs are associated with Jugendstil (German Art Nouveau), they are distinctive and outstanding for their simple, elegant forms. Her glasswork anticipated by years developments in modernist applied art and still today, more than a century later, seem remarkably contemporary and fresh, as the present example clearly demonstrates.
-- Jack Daulton
From 1888 to 1914, Marie Kirschner and her sister Ossip Schubin were noted salonnières in Berlin:
"Die Schwestern Kirschner ließen sich im Jahre 1887 in Berlin nieder. Sie fanden schnell Anschluß an die Künstler- und Literatengesellschaft Berlins und wurden von der Gräfin Maximiliane von Oriola protegiert. Marie Kirschner schloß enge Freundschaft mit der Malerin, Schriftstellerin und Salonnière Marie von Olfers. Die "Donnerstags-Tees" der Schwestern Kirschner wurden beliebte Treffpunkte der Berliner Salongesellschaft; häufig fanden in Atelier Marie Kirschners in der Steglitzer Strasse an diesen Donnerstagen kleine Konzerte statt. Bis zum Vorabend des Ersten Weltkriegs bestand diese künstlerische Geselligkeit. Den Sommer verbrachten die Schwestern meist in Böhmen; während Marie Kirschner bis 1914 die übrige Zeit in Berlin wohnte, scheint Ossip Schubin sich, zumindest in den letzten Jahren, seltener in Berlin aufgehalten zu haben." Petra Wilhelmy, Der Berliner Salon im 19. Jahrhundert (1780-1914) (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1989), pg. 702
["The Kirschner sisters settled in Berlin in 1887. They quickly made contact with Berlin's artists' and writers' society and were protected by Countess Maximiliane von Oriola. Marie Kirschner became close friends with the painter, writer and salonnière Marie von Olfers. The Kirschner sisters' "Thursday teas" became a popular meeting place for Berlin salon society; small concerts often took place in Marie Kirschner's studio on Steglitzer Strasse on Thursdays. This artistic conviviality lasted until the eve of the First World War. The sisters spent most of the summer in Bohemia; while Marie Kirschner lived in Berlin the rest of the time until 1914, Ossip Schubin seems to have spent less time in Berlin, at least in recent years."]
