Posted 4 years ago
A.D. Copier a so called DIKWAND signed A.D. Copier AB 137 ( 1950)
9 cm high and 16 cm in diameter, glass is 4 to 5 cm thick.
Colorless glass with white crackle ( in the birds hard to photograph )and blue glass powder and metal oxide bubbles with relief of 3 birds of trapped airbubbles
From 1937 Copier added figurative decorations to his work
in the same periode at orrefors designer edvin Ohrstrom made his first figurative vases These Ariels are simular to the figurative works by Copier However the manufacturing technique is enterily different Copier had animal and plant figures stamped into the hot glass bubble in 'negative relief 'by means of strip-iron stamps these could be individual stamps like a branding iron ,but an overall patern could be achieved by blowing the glass into an open hinged,square wooden box with stamps fixed onto his sides .After this each imprint was covered with a layer of colorless glass so that airbubbles would be trapped beneath the service the entyre piece was then made smooth and covered with a thick layer of clear glass.
In the finished product the relief was quite vissible not only due to the air bubbles but also because the relief was generally covered with a layer white crackle before or after the imprint process in adition to the crackle glass powders and metal oxides were uses as well as layers of colored glass burst open in many places Producing these pieces was a complicated matter and a entyre crew was needed to make one single piece. Generally they were so big that the furnace had to be enlarged for each session The pieces were cooled down very slowly in a coke-stoked annealing furnace which could hold about 12 pieces at a time.
These pieces are called dikwanden in the netherlands some are 60 cm high and weight 90 kilo I could never afford a big one I have seen one large one in 1990 for 25000 USD
But I managed to get a beautiful small one with bird imprints
it is a great piece, There is a collector of DIKWANDEN when he visits he always takes it in his hands and holds it till he leaves again
Sorry for the long story
for the true lovers http://www.leerdamunica.nl/
it has 580 leerdam unica listed