Pallme-Konig or Elisabeth Glassworks was another glass manufacturer that produced quality art glass during the Art Nouveau period although the origins of the company do indeed go back to the late eighteenth century when a glass refinery was established by Ignaz Pallme-Konig in Steinschonau called Pallme Ullmann.
A century later, in 1889, his grandsons Josef and Theodore Pallme-Konig who now controlled the glassworks merged with the glasshutte at Kosten near Teplitz owned by William Habel. The new company traded as Pallme- Konig & Habel, Steinschonau and Kosten until 1903 and brought together the supplier of raw materials and the manufacturer of the finished glass products . In 1903 the name became Gebr. Pallme-Konig.The company name changed again in 1907 to ‘Glasfabrik Elisabeth, Pallme-Konig & Habel’ and finally closed in the 1930s.
Although its ‘art glass’ production was never on the same scale as Loetz, the factory produced some very innovative ‘free-form’ styles and new techniques within its range of vessels. In particular it designed vessels with dense, applied, surface fused threading.The innovative, organic shapes were sometimes characteristically embellished by sheared and cut rims turned outwards onto the neck.The glasshouse patented the decorative surface technique of ‘cocooning’ vessels with threads in 190o. However, the simple process of applied threading is commonplace among other glass manufacturers and should not be used alone to define an Elisabethhutte product. Pallme-Konig glass is never signed.
As well as ‘decorative’ glass Pallme-Konig also manufactured a variety of utilitarian glass, in particular lighting, both table and ceiling lights, some of a considerable size and usually in their characteristic threaded ‘decor’.
The ‘art nouveau’ glass is increasingly difficult to source and is highly sought after especially the more unusual decors and shapes and should prove to be a sound long term investment. Prices for single vessels range from c. £75 – £1500 and rare pairs may be considerably more. Ceiling lights may fetch as much as £5000.