Monart

Monart Glass was made at the Moncrieff glassworks in Scotland between 1924 and 1961, by Salvador Ysart, a Spanish glassworker, and his four sons.

Salvador Ysart had worked at several French glassworks including the renowned Schneider company near Paris. He was recruited from France in 1915 to work on the British war effort in Scotland producing much-needed items like laboratory glass. After the war (in 1922) John Moncrieff recruited Salvador and his son Paul to make laboratory glass in his glassworks in Perth, Scotland. His other sons, Vincent, Augustine, and Antoine joined their father's team when they were old enough.

In 1923/24 Salvador made a beautiful vase using colours he had brought from France and Mrs Isabel Moncrieff saw it and encouraged him to develop a range of art glass which they called Monart, believed to be combining the first part of Moncrieff with the second part of Ysart.

Monart glass was a great success, and continued in production until 1939 when the Second World War disrupted glass production.

When that war ended in 1945 Monart production was not immediately re-started at Moncreiff's. Salvador and two of his sons were frustrated at this decision, and left Moncrieff in 1946 to set up their own glassworks, which they originally called Ysart Brothers Glass but soon changed this to Vasart Glass. They made a competing line of very similar glass to the Monart pieces they had made at Moncrieff Glassworks (see the Encyclopedia page on Vasart Glass).

Paul Ysart stayed on at Moncreiff's and Monart glass production was restarted in 1947, then continued for another 14 years, but on a much smaller scale than before the War. The colours were also paler after 1945 because fashion tastes had changed and also it was difficult to obtain the bold pre-war colours. Paul Ysart developed a Monart line of paperweights, and when Moncreiff closed its art glass workshop in 1961 they agreed to allow Paul to continue producing his paperweights, for which he had become renowned. However he left shortly afterwards to work for Caithness Glass.

Monart Glass was made to a set of shapes laid out in pattern books, so that we can readily confirm if a particular shape was made in Monart. Generally Monart glass is not signed, but it has a very distinctive pontil mark of a ground disc surrounded by a ground circle. There was a paper label attached to the ground pontil disc, but often these have been lost over the years.

The glass itself was usually clear crystal glass which was blown to shape and then rolled over a pattern made up from specks of coloured enamels and sometimes also aventurine. The whole vase was then cased in clear crystal. Most Monart glass shapes were large vases, but they also made fruit bowls, small bowls with lids, bottles with stoppers, jugs and lamps.