Pitcher c. 1903

Marie Kirschner made this pitcher out of glass sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. The elegant simplicity of its form and its striking blue color were meant to signal a break with the past. Kirschner was a Bohemian artist working at a time when the region was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and Prague, its capital, was becoming a hotbed of artistic experimentation. The glass industry had long been a source of wealth and pride in Bohemia, but new art schools and museums were encouraging artists and designers to embrace modern styles, like Art Nouveau, and explore new ways of working with traditional materials. The goal was to create a uniquely Czech form of modernism. The Czech lands are rich in the raw materials for glassmaking and have a long history of glass production. So it’s worth asking how the cultural and institutional context shaped not just the pitcher’s style but also the means of its production. By studying the history of Czech design, we can better understand the forces that shaped this beautiful object.