Click for picture gallery. Mod: Dead link, see images attached below from Frank.It is in a good clear ruby with no bubbles within the glass. The base has some wear. The pontil mark is unusual as it is a thin ring, about ¾" in diameter, as though the pontil rod was a tube not a rod. Within this ring is the natural surface of the glass, unmodified in any way. Diameter 5", height 4", weight 8¼oz (236g).
The whole item was made from five components. In order of assembly:[list=1][*]The main ashtray, machine threaded around the underside of the rim,[*]The central barleytwist pillar, twisted during assembly just before the swan was added,[*]The swan's body, head and tail, made from a pincer-moulded leaf with impressed branching veins, shear cut to size and then shaped,[*]The two wings, each made in a similar way from a pincer-moulded leaf.[/list:o]The pincer-moulded leaves look to me similar to leaves which were applied to bowls and vases along with stylised flowers, cherries, and stems at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century, thereby re-using a glassmaking tool for an unexpected purpose.
Liebe/Hayhurst, in
Glass of the '20s & '30s, illustrate a similar novelty ashtray on p57, attributing it to Thomas Webb & Sons of Stourbridge, and dating it to the 1920s. Although the pillar here is the stem of a palm tree, and the noverty item is more complex with an added foot, the ashtray component appears to be identical, probably by the same individual glassmaker. On that basis I attribute my swan ashtray to 1920s Webb, as Jeanette Hayhurst is one of the very few whose immense experience of Stourbridge glass is to me unquestionable.
I have made this posting for two reasons. One is to invite reports of other similar novelties. The other is to demonstrate how interesting glass can be when you analyse how it was made.
Finally, I did consider labelling this a "frigger". I am not too happy with this, despite it being labour-intensive to make and thereby possibly not commercially viable considered as mainstream production. Another way of considering it is that one or more of these novelties could have been made at the end of any shift when the normal production for that shift had been completed early, as a useful way of utilising that time. If so, then it would not strictly have been a frigger. ... or would it?
Bernard C.
ps -- I have also posted this topic on auctionbytes.
Topic: Webb Ruby Swan on Barleytwist Pillar Novelty Ashtray (Read 5794 times)
