Kirstie Rea
Early 2000s Australian Modern Wall-mounted Sculptures
Art Glass
People Also Browsed
Mid-20th Century Mid-Century Modern Floor Lamps
Wrought Iron
Vintage 1970s Italian Mid-Century Modern Wall Lights and Sconces
Steel, Metal, Copper
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Wall Lights and Sconces
Plastic
2010s English Modern Table Lamps
Travertine, Stone, Steel
20th Century French Floor Lamps
Crystal
2010s British Modern Table Lamps
Brass
Vintage 1960s German Mid-Century Modern Wall Lights and Sconces
Crystal, Brass
Antique 1750s Italian Baroque Mounted Objects
2010s English Modern Table Lamps
Carrara Marble, Marble, Steel
2010s English Modern Table Lamps
Marble, Steel
Vintage 1950s Austrian Mid-Century Modern Chandeliers and Pendants
Crystal, Brass
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Sunburst Mirrors
Mirror, Wood, Art Glass
21st Century and Contemporary Italian Modern Cabinets
Brass
2010s Austrian Vienna Secession Chandeliers and Pendants
Crystal, Brass
Vintage 1950s Swedish Scandinavian Modern Chandeliers and Pendants
Brass
Vintage 1970s Swedish Scandinavian Modern Vases
Cut Glass, Art Glass
A Close Look at modern Furniture
The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw sweeping social change and major scientific advances — both of which contributed to a new aesthetic: modernism. Rejecting the rigidity of Victorian artistic conventions, modernists sought a new means of expression. References to the natural world and ornate classical embellishments gave way to the sleek simplicity of the Machine Age. Architect Philip Johnson characterized the hallmarks of modernism as “machine-like simplicity, smoothness or surface [and] avoidance of ornament.”
Early practitioners of modernist design include the De Stijl (“The Style”) group, founded in the Netherlands in 1917, and the Bauhaus School, founded two years later in Germany.
Followers of both groups produced sleek, spare designs — many of which became icons of daily life in the 20th century. The modernists rejected both natural and historical references and relied primarily on industrial materials such as metal, glass, plywood, and, later, plastics. While Bauhaus principals Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe created furniture from mass-produced, chrome-plated steel, American visionaries like Charles and Ray Eames worked in materials as novel as molded plywood and fiberglass. Today, Breuer’s Wassily chair, Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair — crafted with his romantic partner, designer Lilly Reich — and the Eames lounge chair are emblems of progressive design and vintage originals are prized cornerstones of collections.
It’s difficult to overstate the influence that modernism continues to wield over designers and architects — and equally difficult to overstate how revolutionary it was when it first appeared a century ago. But because modernist furniture designs are so simple, they can blend in seamlessly with just about any type of décor. Don’t overlook them.
Finding the Right glass for You
Whether you’re seeking glass dinner plates, centerpieces, platters and serveware or other items to elevate the dining experience or brighten the corners of your living room, bedroom or other spaces by displaying decorative pieces, find an extraordinary range of antique, new and vintage glass on 1stDibs.
Glassmaking is more than 4,000 years old. It is believed to have originated in Northern Mesopotamia, where carved glass objects were the result of a series of experiments led by potters or metalworkers. From there, the production of glass vases, bottles and other objects proliferated in Egypt under the reign of Thutmose III. Later, new glassmaking techniques took shape during the Hellenistic era, and glassblowing was invented in contemporary Israel. Then, on the island of Murano in Venice, Italy, modern art glass as we know it came to be.
Over the years, collectors of glass decorative objects or serveware have sought out distinctive antique and vintage pieces of the mid-century modern, Art Deco and Art Nouveau eras, with artisans such as Archimede Seguso, René Lalique and Émile Gallé of particular interest for the pioneering contributions they made to the respective styles in which they worked. Today, long-standing glassworks such as Barovier&Toso carry on the Venetian glasswork tradition, while modern furniture designers and sculptors such as Christophe Côme and Jeff Zimmerman elsewhere test the limits of the radical art form that is glassmaking.
From chandeliers to Luminarc stemware, find a collection of antique, new and vintage glass on 1stDibs.