Extremely rare large Midcentury Czech Chribska Glassworks pink & purple sommerso glass bowl by Josef Hospodka

43cm x 24cm x 10cm, in good vintage condition. This is the largest example of its kind.

Josef Hospodka initially worked at Chribska teaching and by the late 1950s, he had become the Chief Designer for Borske Sklo and he later became a director for the company. In the 1950s and 1960s, Hospodka specialized in creating sculptural blown glass designs for Chribska and Borske Sklo. In the early 1970s, Borske Sklo was replaced by a new National Corporation called Crystalex. Hospodka did freelance designing for Crystalex, up until the time of his 1989 death.  After the fall of Communism and Czechoslovakia became the Czech Republic and Slovakia (around 1993), the Chribska glassworks was privatized.

He often utilised insane colour combinations in his design as well as amorphous shapes, they were considered kitsch because this was the era of Midcentury modern, clean lines, forms and structural aesthetics. Each item he designed weighs between 2kg-4kg, consisting of warping shapes and groovy colours, he was definitely ahead of his time because this comes in line with 70s aesthetics more.

What your seeing here is one of his designs we collect extensively, the Cat’s Whisker bowl (officially the Lip bowl but it looks more like Cat’s whiskers). Each was hand made and the colours combo are similar but never the same.

They are the wild child of the glass world and we love them, they’ve never been shown and or offered from our personal collection to the public until now.