Goblet - For Count Tivadar Andrássy's erstwhile Buda palace dining room

The irregularly shaped, slim, cylindrical, wheel- thrown goblet resembles a sagging glass goblet. The round foot supports four ribs that run up the narrowing, twisted neck, and then open again to a broad, wavy, oval cup. Margit Mattyasovszky-Zsolnay remarks in her memoirs that Rippl "started a series of Art Nouveau flower cups and vases" at the Pécs factory. Rippl used no sketches on paper when designing but, following the practice of "artist" and "artisan" working together, probably guided the virtuoso ceramists of the Zsolnay factory personally. The fact that Rippl-Rónai was also organizing the production of glass goblets of similar character in the glass workshop of F. Zitzmann in Wiesbaden, in 1897-98, parallel with the production at Pécs, supports his authorship. This goblet, with its spontaneous shape and the purple-blue-red colour shading is more extravagant than the red-golden-green tulips, of which a large and varied series were produced in the Zsolnay factory. From 1897-98 onwards, the factory continuously improved and varied even Rippl's own, earlier ideas and vases from 1880.