Charder Glass
from the Glass
Encyclopedia

CHARDER was a name made up from the first part of Charles and the second part of Schnieder. It was sometimes marked on glass designed by Charles Schneider, particularly pieces in the Le Verre Francais line.

Le Verre Francais was a special line of art glass designs made by the Schneider Glassworks in France between 1918 and 1939. The name was used by the Schneiders for 2 or 3-layered cameo glass vases, bowls, ewers, lamps etc. in a style which combined art deco and art nouveau features.

This line was first introduced in 1918 and was sold in their own retail gallery in Paris, run by their sister Ernestine. Le Verre Francais glass was also sold through major department stores in Paris and in the USA and Europe.

Charles and Ernest Schneider were a generation younger than Emile Galle and the Daum brothers, whose glassworks were in the same area of France. The Schneider brothers worked for Daum from the early 1900s, Ernest as a salesman/commercial manager, and Charles as a freelance designer.

The brothers left Daum around 1912, and recommissioned an old glassworks under the name Schneider Freres et Wolff (Schneider Brothers and Wolff), a few miles north of Paris in 1913. Henri Wolff was an architect friend of Charles Schneider.

Initially they made high quality cameo vases and lamps, but the war in Europe (1914-1918) led Charles and Ernest and most of their skilled glassworkers away to fight in the war. They returned and re-opened their glassworks in 1917 to make glassware needed for hospitals, and after the war they sold shares in the company to finance getting back into the art glass market. At that time the company was called the Societe Anonyme des Verreries Schneider.

Charles Schneider was a brilliant and versatile designer, and the company produced a wide range of superb designs of vases, ewers, bowls, and lamps. They were very successful in market ing their glass to major high prestige retail stores both in Paris and overseas. They bought back their shares and re-named the company Verrerie Schneider.

Virtually all their pieces are marked with the name SCHNEIDER or with one of their other trademarks. Sometimes the signature on a Schneider piece was supplemented or replaced by a tiny piece of red, white and blue glass cane set into the glass (a patriotic gesture). If the word "France" appears as part of the Schneider signature, this indicates a piece made after 1945 at the Cristallerie Schneider.