ShareThisDear Helaine and Joe:
Please give me any information you have on this glass vase. It is about 9 inches tall. I cannot distinguish the name on the bottom to do any research on my own.
Thank you.
D.K.
Dear D.K.:
Actually, we believe that we have not been shown the entire signature on this piece. The photograph we have shows the signature of the maker and across from that there should be another scratched-in entry that probably has some numbers and initials that may include a number such as 175/500 -- which would mean it was a limited edition.
Despite this lack of visual information, we are 100 percent sure that this is a contemporary art-glass vase made by Correia Art Glass of Santa Monica, Calif. While this beautiful globular vase decorated with silver- or platinum-colored drag loops looks like it might have been made in the early 20th century by such companies as Steuben or Durand, it was not.
In fact, it is not even particularly "old" (probably less than 25 years), but this kind of glass does have a following among some collectors and is moderately valuable even at its young age. Steven V. Correia founded Correia Art Glass in 1973, and today there are reportedly examples of his company's work in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, the Corning Museum in Corning, N.Y., and the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Va.
The name "Correia" is Portuguese and translates to "leather strap," and is a very common surname in Brazil. Correia Art Glass is very much a family affair. Algerine Correia, president of the company, oversees daily operations and is a glass artist in her own right. Brother Jeffrey Correia is an avant-garde glass artist who sometimes makes one-of-a-kind pieces.
Correia glass pieces are all hand-blown and use sand from the American Southwest, plus minerals and precious metals. Many of the designs are "garnet etched" into the surface, and Correia decorations are never applied using paint.
The piece belonging to D.K. started out as a plain dark blue vessel, and after a bubble had been blown into the "gather" to produce the beginning of the vase form, the glass artist took hot strands of silver- or platinum-colored glass and looped them around the body. Then, the maker took a tool and dragged it down the vessel to give the loops an elongated petal-like look -- thus the name "drag loop" that was mentioned earlier.
Correia Art Glass is not the only company making contemporary art glass. Some of the best known of the other firms are Orient and Flume (founded in 1972), Lundberg Studios (founded in 1970) and Lotton Studios (also founded in 1970). The work of all four is highly regarded and avidly collected, but of this group Lotton Studios is probably the pinnacle in the field of contemporary art glass of the late 20th century and early 21st century.
We hope that D.K. is not disappointed that he does not have an antique or the work of an art-glass company from the early 20th century. Right now a good-sized Correia vase such as his has sold at auction for around $275, and his piece has an insurance value of around $400 to $500.
(Helaine Fendelman and Joe Rosson are the authors of "Price It Yourself" (HarperResource, $19.95). Contact them at Treasures in Your Attic, PO Box 27540, Knoxville, TN 37927. E-mail them at treasures(at)knology.net.)
TREASURES IN YOUR ATTIC
