pokal

This large vessel with finely engraved decoration was made in a glasshouse in Haida (present-day Nový Bor) in northern Bohemia. In form, it is identical to a covered goblet, now in The Toledo Museum of Art, that was engraved with views of the castles Stolzenfels and Burg Rheinstein, which were then owned by Prince Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig of Prussia (1794–1863). That object is believed to have been submitted as a masterpiece to the Bohemian glass guild by Paul Oppitz at the age of 18, when he had completed his training as an engraver. With this success, Oppitz seems to have decorated a second blank of the same goblet, with a different iconographic composition. It shows the sea nymph Galatea, seated in her shell chariot drawn by a pair of dolphins, with two Nereids dancing in the waves at her side. This Pokal exemplifies the elegant classicism of the Biedermeier period (1815–1848), and the ongoing interest in Greek mythology and the pictorial representation of literary subjects during the 19th century. Oppitz gained an international reputation with these vessels. When he had completed his apprenticeship, he immigrated to London, where he became an engraver of great acclaim. Oppitz came from a family of engravers on glass, and he may have been forced to seek employment outside Bohemia because of economic hardships suffered by many glasshouses and decorators at that time. For more on the life and works of Paul Oppitz, see John P. Smith, “Paul Oppitz (1827–1894),” The Glass Circle Journal, v. 10, 2006, pp. 64–75.