(2) Val Saint Lambert Glass Pieces. One a simple cup, the other a diamond-shaped bowl. Both marked on the bases. 

Size of Largest: 11 x 9 1/2 x 2 1/2 in. 

In 1795 during the War of the First Coalition which brought about the fall of the Dutch Republic, France had annexed what was then termed the Southern Netherlands, now known as Belgium. In 1802 Napoleon Bonaparte asked French industrialist Henri D’Artigues to leave the noted French crystal maker Saint-Louis to buy a dilapidated glassworks at Vonêche. Like Saint-Louis, Vonêche produced lead crystal glass, and within ten years had become the most important crystal producer in the French empire. Two of the key workers in the plant’s success were chemist François Kemlin and engineer Auguste Lelièvre. In 1815, following Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, the Southern Netherlands was re-united within the new United Kingdom of the Netherlands. As a result of newly imposed import duties, the Vonêche factory immediately lost most of its French market. In 1816 D’Artigues negotiated with King Louis XVIII of France to buy the Verrerie de St. Anne glassworks in the town of Baccarat, and renamed it the Verrerie de Vonêche à Baccarat, a name it kept until 1843. In 1825 Kemlin and Lelièvre bought the site of the former Val-Saint-Lambert Abbey in Seraing near Liège on the river Meuse. There they founded a new glassworks, still in operation to this day, originally focused on heavy lead crystal, named Val Saint Lambert. The Belgian Revolution of 1830 meant that the Vonêche glassworks also lost most of its Southern Holland market, and hence closed soon afterwards, with almost all the former employees moving to Val Saint Lambert. The two founders initially built two houses for themselves, and quickly created block accommodation for the acquired former Vonêche workers. Like similar highly religious employers, this policy of complete lifestyle development eventually led to the company building over 200 houses on the site to house workers, in what became a self-service village which also had a general store, school and post office. The local Roman Catholic church was also expanded to accommodate additional worshippers. Due to the quality of its designs and manufacturing process, the company developed into an internationally well-known brand. Aside from its home territory of Belgium and the Netherlands, the largest export market was to then-Tsarist-ruled Russia. In 1876 the company opened a distribution base in New York City, which greatly influenced their designs and cutting techniques as they began trying to appeal to the budding American market. At its height between 1900 and 1914 it employed over 5,000 workers creating 120,000 pieces of glass per day, and absorbed several other companies including Jemeppe, Jambes, and two smaller companies near Namur. The company stopped producing during World War I, and post-war after the Russian Revolution the market in Russia totally collapsed, resulting in tremendous financial difficulties and contraction. Exports to North America saved the company, but the Great Depression did further damage in the 1930s, leading to the closure of the Jambes and two Namur factories. The main factory was bombed by both the Nazi Luftwaffe and the Allied Air Forces of the RAF and USAAF, and in the aftermath of World War II production resumed initially in the less bomb-damaged Jemeppe factory until the production lines could be restored at Seraing. Turmoil in Europe and market uncertainty led to the closure of the Jemeppe factory in the 1950s. Today the Seraing facility continues to produce glass art with a royal warrant from King Albert II, with a visitor center and small factory shop still on the original grounds of the ancient abbey.