Schneider / Le Verre Francais (France) mid 1920s chandeliers, ceiling lights and lamps

The Verrerie Schneider company (Schneider Glassware) was founded in 1911 in Epinay-Sur-Seine, in the northern suburbs of Paris in 1911, by brothers Ernest and Charles Schneider, who had trained and worked for both the Galle and Daum companies. It was Charles who took up the position of glass designer and technician for the company, while his brother looked after the administration including accounting and promotion.

The began producing cameo glass in the Art Nouveau style, vases with applied handles in contrasting colours and art glass.

In 1918, Galle’s studios were destroyed by fire and a number of his artists moved to Schneider’s factory to continue their work for Galle. Here they taught Schneider the decorative technique of ‘marqueterie de verre’, where coloured glass shapes are pressed into glass of a different colour to form a pattern or image.

After the 1925 Paris Exhibition, Schneider’s factory, more... now operating under the name Verrerie Schneider, expanded enormously and took on commissions from shops and perfumeries such as Coty, and by 1926 the Verrerie Schneider company was the largest glass producer in France.

The company produced cameo glass, but rather than using the wheel-cut technique, specialised in acid etching to remove the top layers. This was marketed under the "Le Verre Francais" signature, usually inscribed towards the base of the object in script.

Some items also have an additional signature, "Charder", a contraction of CHARles SchneiDER, which most likely indicates the object was of his design.

Other internally decorated objects, or items with applied decoration are signed "Shneider".

The Verrerie Schneider company also manufactured for a number of retailers, and the objects bear the names: "De Baker", "Finnigans", a Manchester based UK silversmith and retailer and "Ovingtons", a decorative arts specialty store in New York.

By the time of the death of Ernest Schneider in 1936, fashions had moved away from the highly decorative coloured glass of the 1920s, and the Verrerie Schneider company commenced producing the clear glass shapes that were being made by the Scandinavian glass makers.

During World War II the company's works were badly damaged and it ceased production in 1940. Following the end of the war, in 1949 Charles Schneider's son, Charles Schneider, Junior led the rebuilding, and the renaming of the company to "Cristallerie Schneider". Charles Schneider died in 1953, and the company ceased operations in 1981. less...