This large, unique glass and enamel mosaic, depicting a colorful and lively underwater scene, was made in the studio of Leopold Forstner. Forstner was a designer, painter, and illustrator who studied from 1899 to 1902 with Kolomon Moser at the School of Applied Arts in Vienna. He was drawn into the circle of avant-garde artists, including Moser, who formed the Vienna Secession, designing graphics for the Secession’s famous journal, Ver sacrum (Sacred spring). Forstner made many research trips to Germany, to the Netherlands, to Belgium, and especially to Italy, where he studied historical and modern glass mosaics in Ravenna, Rome, and Venice. Intent on reviving the art of mosaics, Forstner returned with plans for a workshop of his own. Taking a cue from the recently established Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshops)— which were headed by Josef Hoffmann and Forstner’s mentor, Kolomon Moser—Forstner opened his Wiener Mosaik Werkstätte in 1908, and he added a glassworks in 1912. Forstner’s composite mosaics—made with a variety of materials, such as glass, marble, enamel, ceramics, and metals—won him numerous commissions. Although Forstner was most comfortable working in the style known as Jugendstil, his mosaics remained popular long after the fashion for that movement had waned. The bright, stylized fish and strong patterning in this mosaic show a stylistic debt to Art Nouveau, but these elements turn up again in the wide-ranging decorative style known as Art Deco. Published in Wilhelm Mrazek, Leopold Forstner: Ein Maler und Material-Künstler des Wiener Jugendstils, Vienna: Belvedere, 1981, p. 49.