EDWARD HALD. Slipgraal, Orrefors, signed, 1942.

Sliding grail with geometric decor. Signed Edw Hald Orrefors 1942. Self-signed and dated. Diameter 16.5 cm. Height 6.5 cm.

Edward Hald (1883-1980) came to Orrefors in 1916, the year after Simon Gate, and became at least as important a factor in the success of the glassworks as Gate. They were like a Janus face to Orrefors, always mentioned in the same breath, but were completely opposite natures. Hald once wrote in his diary: “We had the same tasks and goals, but in different temperaments and means of expression. Our work was a constant interaction.” If Gate was classically oriented and happy to be inspired by the lushness of the Baroque, then Hald was the modernist, exhibiting with artists such as Grünewald, Sigrid Hjertén and GAN. Edward Hald's engraved glass was, compared to Gates, decidedly more modern, and in one of his most famous works, “Ball-Playing Girls,” the inspiration from Matisse was clear. The grail glass also interested Hald, who in the 1930s develops the so-called fish graals and aquagraals, in which fish and seagrass hover about, encased in a green-tinted glass.