Topic: millefiori / ink scent bottle amended post now with pictures

[saorsa]

i just did a quick web search after some of the comments

i have included the weblink  http://www.lhselmanltd.com/auc23/au23.html#???-???  then browse down item 101.

the search highlighted initially .

www.lhselmanltd.com/auc23/au23.html
... excellent Clichy lace ground millefiori scent bottle, with a chain of twelve ... pink, cadmium green, cobalt blue and white, around a central fake 1848 date cane. ...www.lhselmanltd.com/auc23/au23.html - 215k - Cached - More from this site


it seems that the date canes were placed in the 2nd row whereas mines is in the 3rd row and also in green canes


i dont know if that makes any difference , but may be of some help or for discussion

[glasstrufflehunter]

Clichy canes look very different from those in this bottle. Perhaps 1848 canes were incorporated in newer pieces hoping to pass them off as Clichy.

Regardless of who made this bottle (I am still inclined to think relatively recent Whitefriars) it is a very nice find. The canes are really lovely.

[KevinH]

1. Confusion of text

I think the references to Clichy are irrelevant. It looks to me as though:

... excellent Clichy lace ground millefiori scent bottle, with a chain of twelve ... pink, cadmium green, cobalt blue and white, around a central fake 1848 date cane. ...

is a mix of text from two different listings in the referenced site. The Clichy part (the text up to "chain of twelve") is from item 80 and this has no comment about an 1848 date. The "central fake 1848" part is from item 83 which is a "Rare Baccarat Dupont millefiori inkwell". "Dupont" items have Baccart-style canes and they do not look like Old English ones.

2. 1848 canes

I am pleased to see that in Larry Selman's text for item 101 Bob Hall's book is quoted which states some of the facts about Arculus, and possibly Walsh-Walsh, using 1848 date canes in items made in the 1920s. However, the title of item 101 is: "Whitefriars-type / Walsh-Walsh ...". This shows that Larry was still hanging on to the ideas of 19th century Whitefriars weights and bottles, even though most folk now accept that this was very unlikely.

The date in Saorsa's bottle is, as Deltab says, clearly "1848". It is the same as a poorly formed one shown by Alan (Tropdevin) in another message. The style of the numbers and the colour are identical. Alan's example is from one his several Arculus / Walsh-Walsh examples made in the 1920s / 1930s.

3. Position of the 1848 cane

This is something I know little about but having the date cane in the third row from the outside may be rather unusual. I know of another example which has "1834" in the third row (see below). Perhaps Alan can comment further in this?

4. Reference Material

Any book published prior to the mid-1990s, such as Sarah Rossi's The Letts Guide to Collecting Paperweights, will attribute various inkwells and paperweights to 19th century Whitefriars. This is because at that time, it was the general belief, even though this had been queried from, at least, 1987.

There are catalogue details from the 1930s (Skinner-Hill) showing items with fake date canes. There are actual provenanced canes donated to Broadfield House Glass Museum in the UK. In the 1999 PCA Bulletin, a weight was discussed which had the typical look of one of the "so-called Whitefriars" ietms but included a cane for "1834" - which pre-dates the earliest known (1845) examples by Bigaglia (using Franchini canes) in Italy! This weight had canes and a central White Rabbit silhouette that could be matched to Walsh-Walsh.

Even in the face of definite evidence to the contrary, some people still cling to a "Whitefriars" attribition.

[tropdevin]

Here, here, Kev!  Please let us kill the 'Antique Whitefriars' myth once and for all. 

There is no evidence that Whitefriars made any paperweights before the 1930s, and it seems they made very few until the 1950s.  Every weight that can be checked from pictures in older books (and current Larry Selman adverts), referred to as 'Antique Whitefriars', was made by Arculus or Walsh Walsh (who took over Arculus around 1930).  Bob Hall interviewed one of the Arculus family who stated he had a job on Saturday mornings making the set-ups, and remembered putting in the 1848 date.  The canes in these weights can be matched to Arculus / Walsh Walsh canes in Broadfield House Glass museum, and in some cases to items still within the possession of the Arculus family. I would have thought that evidence ought to convince any reasonable person.

The bottle is not Clichy, not French, not 1850s.  It is English, made in the 1920-1930 period, and is a fairly typical example.  The quality of Arculus / Walsh Walsh weights varies tremendously - some are really crude, whereas a few stand comparison with any antique maker, and are excellent value for money.

Incidentally, I have approximately 20 weights or bottles with the 1848 date in - if anyone would like to buy them as Clichy, at Clichy prices, they are more than welcome!

Alan