Orrefors and Kosta – the difference between the glassworks

Kosta is the older of the two, founded in 1742, and for a long time made window glass, chandeliers and tableware before artists such as Elis Bergh and Vicke Lindstrand gave it a profile of its own. Orrefors became a glassworks only in 1898 but made its name from 1916 with Simon Gate and Edward Hald, engraved glass and the techniques Graal and Ariel. Today both are part of the same company, but the signatures tell them apart.

Facts

Two works in the Kingdom of Crystal

Kosta and Orrefors both lie in Småland, in the forest district between Växjö and Kalmar known as Glasriket (the Kingdom of Crystal), where the forest supplied firewood for the furnaces. But they have different histories. Kosta was founded in 1742 by the governors Anders Koskull and Georg Bogislaus Staël von Holstein, after whom it was named, and it is counted as Sweden’s oldest glassworks still in operation.

Orrefors was for a long time an ironworks and began making glass only in 1898, chiefly window glass and bottles. It was when the works were bought by Johan Ekman in 1913 and focused on art glass that it became the name we know today. The difference in age shows in the objects: Kosta has a long tradition of utility glass and chandeliers, Orrefors became an art glassworks early.

Orrefors: the artists and Graal

In 1916 and 1917 Orrefors employed the artists Simon Gate and Edward Hald. They were painters, not glassblowers, and together with the glassworks’ craftsmen they developed engraved glass with elegant figures, such as Gate’s goblets, and as early as 1916 Graal glass, in which the pattern lies inside the glass. At the exhibition in Paris in 1925 they won the Grand Prix, and Swedish design was given the name Swedish Grace.

In the 1930s Ariel followed, with air embedded in the glass, and artists such as Vicke Lindstrand, Edvin Öhrström, Nils Landberg, Sven Palmqvist and Ingeborg Lundin. Orrefors therefore became known for thick, clear crystal, engraving and the enclosed techniques; see the guide to Graal and Ariel.

Kosta: chandeliers, tableware and art glass

In the 18th and 19th centuries Kosta made window glass, chandeliers and tableware, and the glassworks community was built around the glasshouse. Art glass came later than at Orrefors. Elis Bergh was artistic director from 1929, and Vicke Lindstrand, who had earlier worked at Orrefors, took over in 1950 and gave the works a modern profile with free, organic forms and colour.

From the end of the 1950s Mona Morales-Schildt made cut glass with coloured layers, and the works continued to make both utility glass and art glass. Kosta’s glass from the post-war years is often more colourful than Orrefors’s clear crystal. The neighbouring works Boda, founded by workers from Kosta, became known in the 1950s and 60s for Erik Höglund’s coarse, bubbly glass.

Together in one company

In the second half of the 20th century several of the glassworks in Småland merged. Kosta joined with Boda and Åfors to form Kosta Boda, and in 1990 Orrefors and Kosta Boda merged. Since 2005 they have been owned by New Wave Group, and production has been concentrated in fewer glasshouses.

The names are today brands within the same company. For an older glass, however, the name of the works says a great deal, since the works had their own artists, their own techniques and their own ways of signing.

How to read the signature

The signature beneath the foot is the surest way of telling them apart. Orrefors’s engraved signature is Orrefors or the abbreviation Of, followed by the artist’s initials and a model number, often with a letter or numeral for the year. Kosta signed with Kosta, the artist’s name or initials and a number; older utility glass often lacks marking and has had only a paper label.

Graal and Ariel bear the name of the technique in the signature and come from Orrefors. The signatures and their codes are gone through in more detail in the guide to glass signatures, and the detail drawings further down show what to look for.

What to look for: the style

Without a signature the style helps. Clear, thick crystal with engraving, or with a coloured pattern or air bubbles inside the glass, points to Orrefors. Colourful, organic forms from the 1950s and 60s, or cut glass with coloured layers, more often point to Kosta, and coarse, bubbly glass with stamped figures to Boda.

But style is no proof, since artists changed works and the works influenced one another. More glass can be found under glass, and how glass is formed is explained in the guide to mouth-blown and pressed glass.

How to recognise it

Exercise

Beneath the foot of a thick, clear vase it says Of followed by initials and a number. Which glassworks does it probably come from?