Beer Tumbler (Austria)

This tumbler is from a set of glasses designed and produced as a result of the versatile and innovative designer Ted Muehling’s collaboration with Cooper-Hewitt and the Viennese glassware company, J. & L. Lobmeyr.
While conducting archival research and looking at the pieces of Lobmeyr glass both at the firm’s museum and in Cooper-Hewitt’s collection, Muehling became enthralled with the skill of craftsmanship exhibited not only in glass blowing but in glass engraving, especially noting the subtleties obtained by hand engraving cross-hatched lines. Muehling was influenced by the cross-hatching in Adolf Loos’s glass design for the American Bar in Vienna and wanted to create a geometric design to feature this rare skill. Muehling also wanted to reference the idea of the stemless glass, as Lobmeyr was among the first high fashion glass design firms to bring the stemless glass into use.
Originally intended as a series specifically for the museum’s exhibition, Ted Muehling Selects: Lobmeyr Glass from the Permanent Collection, held from April 2010 to January 2011, the set of tumblers required a longer timeline for design and execution due to the high level of attention to detail typical of all aspects of Lobmeyr’s creation. The final engraving of this set was not completed until after the exhibition closed.
This set shows the influence of the museum’s collection of historic pieces of Lobmeyr on a contemporary designer and demonstrates a new direction for Muehling through his reference to grid patterns.

Beer Tumbler (Austria); Manufactured by J. & L. Lobmeyr GmbH (Austria); hand-engraved mold-blown glass; H x diam.: 15.2 x 8.3 cm (6 in. x 3 1/4 in.); Gift of J. & L. Lobmeyr; 2011-38-1

This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition The Virtue in Vice.