Topic: Help identify J Derbyshire type vase please

[Angela B]

Can somebody help Marinka Bozzec and I identify the black hand vase shown in this picture
http://www.glassencyclopedia.com/2handvases.html
The clear frosted vase is design registration number 280197 registered in 1873 by John Derbyshire of Salford, Manchester, England. However, it is not the same vase as the black one which has a ribbed cuff and a different pattern around the base. A similar one to the black one is shown in Cyril Manley's book on page 102, and he says it has a "large and spidery" J. Derbyshire & Co. trademark. But this black one, which belongs to Marinka Bozzec, does not appear to have any marks.
It would be really good if somebody can tell us the registration number or confirm that they have seen one with the Derbyshire trademark

[Bernard C]

Angela — This question has been on the boil for at least twenty years, with no-one any closer to a solution.   I don't trust Manley's book — he was of that generation of so-called experts to whom "Don't know" was not a valid option, which makes it very difficult to distinguish between fact and informed guesswork (fiction), as they don't usually tell you how they arrived at their conclusions.   Fortunately there are only a few of these experts left, mostly in the second rank of auction houses, and they are rapidly going extinct.

Derbyshire could have had two moulds, but a different glass house is more likely, as I don't know of any other Derbyshire pattern with two nearly identical moulds, which indicates to me that they looked after their moulds with considerable care.   I don't think it has been established whether Derbyshire's registration was enforceable, as hand vases were made in other materials, and we don't know which came first.

Bernard C. 

[Angela B]

Thanks Bernard, I hadn't realised it was such a long-standing issue.
There is a very similar-looking vase by Percival Yates and Vickers shown on page 47 of Jenny Thompson's book (Rd no. 284031). It doesn't have a hand, it has a fish. But the top looks similar to Marinka's black vase. Not that that proves anything, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

[heartofglass]

Hi Angela,
many thanks for posting about this vase. It is a real mystery!
I checked it again for marks & there are none whatsoever.
The style is obviously English & Northern, but after looking through my copy of the Hajdamach book's chapter on pressed glass, it could have been from any one of the many major & lesser-known factories.
The body of the vase has a distinctive pattern all over it, like leaves. The black glass is incredibly dense, it's blacker than any black glass I have ever seen. Black is also a very rare colour for hand vases.
This is a rare hand vase, the only one of this exact mould shape I have encountered. The only other one I have seen is pictured in the Manley book, & that one is clear frosted flint glass.
Any information regarding this vase would be greatly appreciated, as I need an attribution for both my article for the Glass Museum online & my forthcoming book on hand vases.

[Lustrousstone]

Perhaps the black is a clue. If it is so dense and dark it might be hyalith. If it is hyalith, who made it apart from   Freiderich Eigerman and Colonel Bucquoy, both Czechoslovakia? Or who else made anything similar?

[Bernard C]

Thompson p41 shows both Derbyshire pieces that have close lookalikes, the hand vase and the "spell" (spill) vase of April 28, 1876.   The nearly spell vase is often seen in hard opaque white.   This one's been ticking along for 20 years or more with no solution as well!

Solve one of these and there is a good chance that you've solved the other.

Christine — All the polished and matt black versions of these two styles of vase I have seen have been in amethyst glass, but you often need a very intense light to see it.

Bernard C. 

[Angela B]

Here are some of the differences between the two hand vases. You can see these differences, of course, but I just wanted to summarise them:
1: the Derbyshire (clear frosted) vase has 24 points around the rim. The black (unidentified) one only has 12.
2: the Derbyshire vase is quite fat all the way down, whereas the other is shaped into quite a narrow wrist.
3: the Derbyshire vase has leaves and bulrushes whereas the other has just different kinds of leaves.
4: the Derbyshire vase has a simple looped pattern cuff, the other has a ribbed collar around the wrist with a fancy pattern of lines and dots around the cuff.
5: the Derbyshire frosted vase has shiny fingernails, and I can't tell whether the frosted version of the alternate vase (shown in Manley's book on page 102) does, but I think not.

Does anyone have access to old catalogues of the Manchester and Salford glassworks from the 1870s or 80s?

[mhgcgolfclub]

I can solve this very long running mystery and confirm that Cyril Manley was correct and that both hand vases were John Derbyshire and I should be able to add some pictures later.

Roy

[billben]

I have only just come across this topic & was disapointed to see it hadnt been firmly resolved, as Bernard C states its been an ongoing query for many years. I was as equally disapointed by the unwarranted criticism of Manley's book on Victorian Glass. There is no doubt he did make mistakes, though probably no more than Slack did in his book.  It should be remembered that these were the days before the internet, when research involved a lot more than adjusting the height of your computer chair and information was in many cases collected by word of mouth from factory workers.  I do however think we should be grateful to all of the authors of that time, no matter what their faults, who without benefit of hindsight, brought the beauty of glass to our attention.  The small group of people who continue to 'knock' Manley are diminishing, perhaps in the meantime we should be grateful for his efforts.

[flying free]

Bernard is no longer with us.
I have also been critical of Manley's book.
To put the record straight,it is remembered that Manley's book was written in the days before the internet.  It is acknowledged that he publicised glass collecting and made great efforts to bring it to the fore as a collectable and to document some of it's history.
And it is acknowledged in more than one thread on here, that he would probably have loved the Glass Message Board and the opportunity to discuss glass with those who also love glass as he did.  And I am sure he would have loved the access to information that the internet affords,but that was not available when he was writing his book.

However, because of when the book was written, and that at the time there was a lack of opportunity for him to garner original source references, there are numerous incorrectly identified pieces in his book on Victorian Glass.  And so for the time we are in now, whilst I have the book and do use it often to see what he might have said, I would never buy it in order to use it to identify glass.

That does not take away from the fact that it is a lovely book with great glass in it.  But it does mean that if others use it to identify glass, then many pieces may be incorrectly identified ... and that is a problem when it comes to someone selling glass on the basis of an incorrect identification of a piece that has subsequently been correctly id'd as another maker.  It's a problem because it muddies waters again, and because it might be mis-representation.  It may also garner the seller an enormous sum of money, by them mis-representing who the item was actually made by ...  thus leaving an unsuspecting buyer with perhaps an item that is worth considerably less than they paid for it even allowing for market forces.

I am not denigrating the work that went into producing the book.  But in my opinion I would not use it as a reference source.

m