Vintage: Shining legacy of Swedish Kosta Boda glass

Collectors can seek out at car-boot sales and online auctions, or spring for something new by a young designer 

Crackle glass by Kosta. Here a sack form a large vase is pregnant with beautiful flowers. So Rococo and dazzling. Vases from €252 new. Suppliers include Nordic Nest.

NOW that spring has been busting out all over, the wedding season is here. Many of us are beating the streets and our keyboards for well-priced but uniquely interesting objects to stand out on the gifting table. When it comes to design clout, you can’t get better than the crystal credentials of Kosta Boda. Many years ago, I came down to my breakfast in Eslov in Sweden and found my chair and plate festooned with wildflowers. 

Sitting front and centre was a glass snowball by Kosta Boda. Kosta remains one of my favourite glass houses Worldwide for its beautiful, affordable pieces that are tiered to every budget without ever losing quality and shine. Up to 15 craftspeople will work on a single piece from the Kosta studio, and they are rightly famed for their bold experimentation and innovative techniques.

Contrast bowls recall packed melting ice and are universally appealing in a variety of base colours with strands of random glass. Each is hand-made and therefore unique. From €65 new.

For collectors, you can reach left or right — seeking out older ranges at boot sales and online auctions, or springing for something new by a young designer releasing their work. The original glass works in Kosta was founded in 1742 in the Swedish province of Smaland, where the glass house was set in the deep, abundant forest vital to feed the glass furnaces serving the growing merchant centres of Stockholm and Karlskrona with everything from bottles to chandeliers. The name of the company is a combination of that of the founders and the place, Generals Koskull and Staël von Holstein. Smaland retains a rich heritage in glass-making that wowed the mid-century bright young things.

What brought the Kosta factory to glory was (curiously) a shattering review of their showcase following the General Art and Industrial Exposition of Stockholm in 1897. They were put down in the press for producing dull, generic glassware. This spurred an executive decision to take on artist Gunnar Gunnarsson Wennerberg, the following year, who created a line of magnificent cameo-glass in the French Art-Nouveau style. That spirit of encouraging white-hot design, artistry and perfect utility has endured at Kosta. 

My own boot-sale find: €10 paid for this mouth-watering 1960s example of a Sommerso style cased-glass from the late Vicki Lindstrand for Kosta Boda (inscribed marked). Always insist on perfection with thrifted, vintage glass or pay next to nothing for damaged ìdecoratorî pieces of mid to late-century 20th-century glass.

Kosta, Boda and Åfors combined becoming Kosta Boda, and in 1989, the factory was taken over by the legendary house of Orrefors (another Scandinavian name to conjure with in your sucking mud tramps of boot sales and charity shops this spring/summer). So, what’s worth buying new in Kosta Boda vintage classics and brilliant new releases?

Bertil Vallien’s boat series has been around since 2018, and with its heritage and poetic simplicity it became an instant classic with his greatest work a full four metres long. “The boat carries so much history and symbolism, with a thin hull forming the only protection from catastrophe. In the past, kings and captains were buried in their boats, with golden treasure, horses and everything. The dead were sent out to the open sea, in order to tumble off the edge of the horizon, into a new life on the other side. The boat is also a place of solitude. If you row out with your beloved, you are alone, isolated from the world” (Beril Vallien).

My choice would be the BV Drifter with a copper figure floating freely in the middle with a glass spiral running along the fore and aft of the boat. It has a moulded heel, so it stands stably in any position. €295. For a round shape in the Vallien school, look up his My Ocean, Home, and My Universe — universally appealing shelf pieces with unique inclusions in their making, priced from €225. His whimsical Zoo series appears regularly on eBay and Etsy from the €50 mark depending on the beast.

My next choice would be Rocky Baroque candlesticks, by Hanna Hansdotter. Kosta has a proud history of working with female designers, and these pieces are icons in the making by a young creator who thrives on the boundary between “the harsh and the decorative”. Hanna puts together sucked sweetie, pop-colours to lift any tablescape, with jagged sections recalling uncut crystalline gemstones and the faceted architectural columns of ancient Rome. If you love period uranium glass, you’ll love her Kryptonite Green. I particularly like how she has worked to highlight the mould lines rather than hide them. From €276.90, multiple suppliers.

I have a number of Kosta pieces in clear glass, and they are some of my favourites as their iciness recalls precious winters in the chill brilliance of Southern Sweden. A recent release, the Crackle Bowl by Åsa Jungnelius, takes their old technique of dipping the hot glass into freezing water to produce a uniquely cool striated finish that remains sound enough to use for flowers and fluids. With a delightful biomorphic shape, Crackle has a Viking story that Boda describes as “fire, earth and thunder” and comes in a number of sizings. For the same expressive shapes in a colour there are emerald green and sapphire blue variants in the Crackle range. From €252.

For under a hundred (You can spend thousands scaling the Artist collections), the Contrast bowls offer gorgeous, semi-opaque dish shapes in a variety of colours. Anna Ehrner’s pieces contain fascinating inclusions of wisps and strands of deeper-shaded glass that could be seaweed, grass or a take on Venetian millefiori. Timeless, the illustrate why Kosta remains the oldest surviving glass-works in Sweden. From €65, it would make a breath-taking little gift for you or the happy couple. Hefty, melty Snowballs exactly like mine, are still made at Kosta, sold by the barrowload every day. They look stunning refracting the light of a votive at any time of year. From €40; gift in a pair.

Once you do buy any radical piece of Kosta, chances are you will want an example of the genius of designer Vicki Lindstrand (1904-1983) in Italian Sommerso style from the 1950s and 1960s for your collection. Trust me, keep your eyes open, even his most knee-knocking cased glass blobs of suspended colour are overlooked on the second-hand circuit and bargains do turn up on Etsy and Ebay in mint condition. Note: nothing bar perfect condition will do in collectable vintage glass — no cracks, no nibbles, no bruises — not a mark bar a mild, honest rub wear to the base. 

Lindstrand is known for his work at Orrefors and Kosta, where his visionary designs and pioneering technique including the Ariel, set blobs of glass afloat in his signature pieces like the Kosta Winter vase. Look for etched marks bearing his name together with a series number. Cheaper, easier to find? Paperweights and sun-catchers by Erik Höglund moulded with a variety of ancient symbolism. Try Etsy sellers for reasonable ticket prices and a superb choice of mid-century based in Scandinavia including OlsenRetro.