Welcome to the “NEW” Loetz.com!
Last year we were informed that a major update of the platform and software that supports Loetz.com would be required to ensure that this valuable resource could continue. Even though we were given a year’s notice that the cutoff date of the old software platform would occur on August 31, 2023, we knew this transition would not be easy and would take considerable time. Luckily, we just made the deadline!!
As you know, Loetz.com is primarily a visual resource. With over 7,500 images uploaded to this website, it was no small undertaking for our webmaster, a talented young man who lives in Switzerland, to find replacement software that would not only support the volume of images shown on this website but also support how those images are viewed, presented, searched and stored on Loetz.com. While our primary goal was to ensure that this valuable resource would continue to be available to users for many years to come, we also hoped we could maintain the design and function of the original site as closely as possible. The new Loetz.com is not an exact replica but we hope it meets with your approval. Please let us know if you see something that doesn’t look right or encounter a problem with how the new site works. We appreciate your continued support.
However, none of this would have been possible without the generous support of so many wonderful users of this site. If we had not received your donations when we did, we would not have been able to start this major software update well in advance of the cutoff time. A big “Thank you!” goes out to all of you who supported Loetz.com to ensure that this valuable resource will continue to be available to users on a 24/7 basis. For a list of the Loetz.com financial supporters, click the links to see the Business and Individual contributors whose names are highltighted in BLUE.
The Loetz.com Advisory Team
WE ARE ASKING FOR YOUR SUPPORT...
Loetz.com recently started an important fundraising campaign. In the next few months we will be faced with a very expensive website update. We are reaching out to dealers, auction houses and collectors who use Loetz.com. While we happily volunteer our time to research decors, answer collector's questions and keep the site up-to-date and accurate, we are hoping that everyone who uses Loetz.com and values Loetz.com will help us maintain this important website by clicking the "DONATE" link here or on the left side of the website list of categories. I hope you can help support Loetz.com and maybe even spread the word to other Loetz collectors that you know! All contributions are greatly appreciated and go directly to the maintenance of the website. THANK YOU!
A new Loetz decor & request for your help!
Loetz.com is pleased to start the new year by presenting another new decor, Diana m Vulcan. This is an early Series I decor first produced c1898. This vase was exhibited at the 1898/99 Winter Exhibition in Vienna at the MAK. An example of this vase can be seen in a photograph shown on page 256, plate 270 of "Loetz Austria 1900" by Waltruad Neuwirth. This is the only example of this decor that we have seen. It was identified by Toby Sharp, a member of the Loetz Advisory Group who resides in Vienna. Maybe once we have made this new decor public, other examples might surface.
We also want to announce that the Loetz Advisory Group will begin a complete review of the entire website beginning February 1, 2020. This will be a huge undertaking and will likely take the entire year to complete. This project will cover a review of each photograph, all of the decor descriptions, adding or updating production numbers, adding designer names where applicable, resizing photos that are too large and slowing down the site and anything else that might be out of place or need updating. In doing this review, we would like to ask everyone's help in identifying any additions or changes that should be made. Please contact us at
Please Welcome a New Decor & Help Us Celebrate Loetz.com's 7th Birthday!
In February of 2012, we acquired the URL for Loetz.com to ensure that this site would be updated, accurate and remain a free, non-for-profit resource for anyone wanting to obtain information about Loetz art glass. At that time, we envisioned showing many photos and various ground color examples for each Loetz decor along with descriptions, production dates and production numbers where available. We also wanted to arrange all of this information in a format that could be easily viewed and searched. Little did we know that our vision for this website would require that the old site be retired and a completely new and redesigned site created. It was a surprise and quite an undertaking but nine months later in November 2012, we welcomed our new baby, Loetz.com, into the world.
Today, we take this time to celebrate Loetz.com’s Birthday and to reflect on where she’s been these past 7 years! Together with our Loetz Advisory Group, we have to date identified 105 new decors and over 100 new "painted and gold relief" DEKs. We were helped immeasurably in this task by Dr. Jitka Lĕničková's massive book, 'Loetz / Series II: Paper Patterns for Glass from 1900 to 1914', published in 2011. Together with our large photo library of over 32,000 photos of Loetz art glass that have been carefully collected and saved over a 15 year time span and the talented researchers in our Loetz Advisory Group who are willing to spend the time to connect all of these dots, we continue our mission to help preserve the history of this amazing art glass.
Going forward, we will continue to add to the index of known as well as newly discovered Loetz decors, and also include even more information on the website regarding the history of Loetz Witwe, books available about this glass, museums where you can see their creations, designers who collaborated with the company, and much else besides. Whether you are a collector, dealer, museum or auction house, we hope you have enjoyed www.loetz.com and are as excited as we are about the work that we are doing to help preserve the history of this glass which is another reason we hope www.loetz.com will be around to celebrate many more birthdays.
In the spirit of this commitment, please welcome another new Loetz decor - Fortuna! Even though we had found 35 known paper patterns that mentioned “Fortuna” in the production notes (which is actually quite a few listings for a decor that we had no idea what it looked like), this decor remained a mystery and one we would work on for several years. To help us get there, we photographed each paper pattern that mentioned this decor so we could study each one in more detail. Then we selected some of the more unusual shapes to see if we could match these to any photographs of Loetz vases in our library to help narrow down the identity of this decor. It eventually became clear after seeing so many mentions of “Fortuna” along with “Dark-green or leaf-green verlaufend Sprialoptisch” in the production notes, that Fortuna was indeed a production of Spiraloptisch but only in these specific spreading or "verlaufend" colors. We hope you enjoy this new Loetz decor.
As you can see, we and the Loetz Advisory Group are fully motivated to continue to invest our time, effort and expertise in maintaining and expanding the content of Loetz.com so that it will remain a valuable and reliable Loetz resource. However, the third-party costs of hosting and maintaining the site, especially for site security, are continuously increasing. While several collectors, galleries, auction houses and individuals have supported us financially over the years, and we thank them most sincerely for their past and present contributions, the vast majority of the costs to maintain this site are still borne by us personally. Clicking our 'Donate' button here or on the front page of the Loetz.com website, will go a long way to helping us continue to maintain this site. Any and all monies you are kind enough to donate will be used entirely and exclusively for third-party costs required to maintain the site. We thank you in advance for your support and encouragement to continue our work and research on Loetz art glass.
Kindest regards,
Yet another new decor! Please welcome PG 2/315
Thanks to collector, Dieter Forthuber, we are please to present a new decor, PG 2/315.
This decor was originally thought to be a "one-off". However, after finding several examples that matched the decor description of "rosa or Rosa Silberiris" PG 2/315, we were confident that fellow collector and contributor, Dieter Forthuber, had indeed revealed a new decor that was produced in various shapes. Please welcome PG 2/315 to the Loetz.com new decors list.