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A REICKE Art Deco Glassware from the Coupole Paris or FAKE INVENTIONS ?

A REICKE Art Deco Glassware from the Coupole Paris or FAKE INVENTIONS ?

A REICKE and the history of La Coupole

La Coupole
We are referring here to the the famous and illustrious French brasserie, and not the concrete dome constructed by Hitler of the same name.
This famous establishment brought to life in 1926 by French entrepreneurs Msrs Lafon and Fraux has been associated with many of the great artist of Paris in the early 20th century.

It was opened in 1928, the brasserie on the ground floor, a dance hall in the basement and the Pergola restaurant on the first floor, the venue rapidly became the trendy meeting place for the Parisian artistic community. It was a regular haunt for Jean Cocteau, Joséphine Baker, Man Ray, Louis Aragon, Elsa Triolet, Hemingway, Picasso, Sonia Delaunay, Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Ionesco, and Giacometti to name but a few.

Decoration of the brasserie was trusted to father and son, Alphonse-Louis et Paul Solvet, in turn they employed 27 artists to paint the pillars and walls of this temple of luxury and modernity.
The names of these artists like Marie Vassilieff, Matisse, Léger, Kisling are still well known today. Others such as  Alexandre Auffray, Isaac Grünewald, Louis Latapie, Jeanne Rij-Rousseau, David Seifert, Othon Friesz and Victor Robiquet are perhaps less well remembered. There is however one name who appears to have resurfaced recently, and gained quite a reputation for his spectacular art deco styled glassware.

This name is A Reike. According to many internet sites Riecke was a Russian glass artist who was entrusted with the illustrious task of creating the glassware for the establishment.

According to sources in the world of antiques in France, a certain Parisian dealer was fortunate enough to stumble on a cache unused glass items created by the artist in the1930s.

I first came across some of these glass creations in the early 2000s at an antiques fair in the South of France, but I was aware they could be regularly found at the weekend antiques market in Vanves Paris.

At the time I suspended disbelief for long enough to purchase some of the items, but my gut feeling was already shouting “ if something is to good to be true, it probably is “ the dealer concerned had dozens of signed and dated clear glass wares in the geometric style known as art deco. All were signed A Riecke and some were dated apparently from the late 20s and 1930s.

I sold the items as modern copies, they were indeed quite interesting but I was 100% sure that these items were not more than months old, if that.

Over the following more than 20 years the same dealer is still finding dozens of ever more complex vases and glass decorative objects by A RIEKE.


I have no idea whether A Riecke ever existed, or if indeed if he ever had anything to do with the famous establishment he apparently created glassware for. I can find no mention of his name anywhere in the various biographies devoted to the building and its history.
That in itself is not unusual, as unless you were known in circles of high society or were known for some outrageous acts in public, history has a habit of consigning your name to the trash bin of time rather quickly.


Le Corbusier once wrote,
Our world, like a charnel-house, lies strewn with the detritus of dead epochs.

I am convinced and will remain so until other evidence can be shown, that this is nothing more than a lucrative fiction created by some unscrupulous so called “antiques dealers “ in order to make money from people gullible enough to trust their stories.

Who could blame them really? The objects themselves are quite interesting, but the prices obtained are hundreds of times greater than those of similar modern creations.

The early versions of these items were relatively simple but in the last 20 years they have become increasingly complex incorporating engraving and several colours of glass on the same object.

One could understand if they were just being sold as contemporary creations that the objects would indeed be fairly expensive, but signing and applying an anterior date is pure deception.

The objects are signed and dated A Riecke, even if he lived and worked in the 1930s, he must have never sold a single item of his production, patiently storing it all away for some future person to find after his death.
Some of the pieces are dated 1949, so he must have had the good fortune to be able to continue his work throughout the second war.
Alternatively he must have had a glass manufacturing workshop to rival those of Lalique, Legras, Delatte, or Daum, from which his output was so massive, that when the ultimate misadventure occurred, the working stock of his factory still counted thousands of intricately decorated creations.

Neither of these scenarios is very credible.

Suspending disbelief is something we humans are rather good at, particularly when there is coin to be had. This is a minor manifestation of cognitive dissonance in the scale of human activity, but if you engage regularly in this kind of deception one should not be surprised when someone notices.

In the case of this particular art world scam, the names of many so called reputable dealers and auction houses can be counted. Did they know? One would think so as they are supposed to be knowledgable on the subject of the objects they sell.

This descriptive from ebay is fairly common

Provenance : Restaurant La Coupole à Paris. A. RIECKE, artiste russe, installé à Paris a été responsable du décor en verrerie Art Déco de 1930 à 1937 du restaurant La Coupole à Paris. Le Restaurant La Coupole est le temple de l’Art Déco. Il naît en 1927 de la volonté de deux Auvergnats, Ernest Fraux et René Lafon.

this one is from Le Harvre encheres,

Description of the lot 406

A. RIEKE (XXe siècle), Grand vase en verre de forme tronconique réalisé pour le restaurant La Coupole à décor en façade d'un motif constructiviste avec triangle et cylindre en céramique, surmontant un décor géométrique. Montants ornés de chutes d’angle

The object itself is a great creation, but I am certain a simple analysis of the glue would reveal traces of isocyanate, Though the chemistry was discovered in 1848 it was not until the late 60s that these compounds were widely employed in industrial manufacture.

A quick internet search will reveal dozens of cubist and or art deco creations by this famous unknown glass artist. So far in all the literature I have seen devoted to glass of the period 1930 to

1950 I have not found a single mention of his name. This is odd because if he really did make these incredible creations, he must have been one of the most innovative artists of his era.

In my more than 40 years of dealing, and handling hundreds of genuine art deco period glass objects, I have never seen anything even coming close in design terms to these items except on the stand of one Parisian dealer.

In theory it is a crime in Europe to pass something off as something else, but perhaps that is only true if you are born in China.

 I rest my case If something looks to good to be true, it probably is !