Kjellander 1940s Naked Woman Holding a Basket of Fruit, Engraved Swedish Lead Crystal Vase

This beautiful vintage crystal vase is an excellent Art Deco example of engraving the human form. The artist gave the woman well-defined musculature and gave her basket finely detailed fruit. The image was made by cutting into the glass with jewelers grit and a spinning copper wheel - pretty cool. It is a large vase: 5.5 inches in diameter and 10 inches tall, and it weighs more than 5 pounds. It has had a life! The bowl has many small scratches and the pedestal base has some chips on the bottom, so it is being offered at $100 less than the original price.

The vase comes from the Kjellander Workshop of Sweden. The Kjellander brothers, Nils and Åke, were fourth generation engravers. Their father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all began as engravers at Kosta Glassworks, long before the Boda merger. The Kjellanders did not make glass, but they could sure engrave it. The brothers, along with their father, Lars Johan, opened up their own shop in 1924 and stayed in business until 1983.