Topic: Antique flower paperweight puzzle

[tropdevin]

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I am not sure who made this flower paperweight. It looks to be old, has a very neat latticino basket, competent flower petals, but rather poor stems and leaves. Is it a good Chinese from the 1920s? A modest AntiqueFrench weight, maybe St Louis, or an unknown factory? An American weight?

Any ideas?

Alan

[glasseyed]

Hi Alan

I don't think it's "proberbly French"  :spls: like you I'm more inclined to think probably something else.

Hazel

[paperweights]

Hi Alan,

Nothing modest about this.  I believe it is an antique St. Louis Pelargonium.  Check out the picture on page 98 of Selman's Art of the Paperweight, the big book.

It would look great next to my doorknobs. 

http://paperweights.com/knob1.jpg


http://paperweights.com/knob2.jpg

Regards, Allan

[TxSilver]

It is probably a good weight. The filigrana is a form called reticello, which is a difficult technique. The reticello is well done.

[Sach]

Sorry to disagree Anita but that is not reticello.  In reticello there is a small air bubble trapped at the center of each diamond shaped opening of clear glass between the white canes.  What you have here is latticino.  It is a simpler, but not simple technique where a small bubble is blown then is carefully collapsed back upon itself without trapping any air at the center.  The result is a pinwheel like swirl where the lines from the front and the back halves of the bubble appear to intersect.

You can get a good look at reticello and see the difference here: http://www.eastfallsglass.com/demos.php?demoname=reticello

[TxSilver]

I think you are right. I checked the weight again and saw only a few bubbles. My mind just probably filled in the rest. I am used to seeing latticino as canes -- zanfirico collapsed to form a crosshatch appearance. I am going to have to broaden my definition of latticino.

Sometimes the bubbles in reticello are very small. I have had a couple of dense reticello vases that looked like they had no bubbles until the pieces were held to light, then the bubbles glisten. It would be nice to have this paperweight in hand to check for them.

[KevinH]

In paperweight collector terminology the commonly used term is "double swirl latticinio". And yes, there are no intentional bubbles as with reticello. The bubbles seen in the eBay weight are at junctions and edges of the lampwork - something that is not intentional but quite often seen in antique weights with lampworked flowers.

For two other St Louis Pelargonium weights see the 1999 Exhibition gallery in the website for The Paperweight Collectors Circle. Point to the "Events" menu then click on "Past exhibitions"; Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the "Index here" link in the section for "1999 Christie's, London". After that, select "St. Louis (Flower, Fruit and Vegetable)" under the "Antique French" section, and then click on the 3rd and 4th images in the top row of that gallery.

Note that in the Blue Pelargonium in the PCC 1999 Exhibition, the centre of the flower is identical to that shown in the eBay item. (You may also notice that the descriptions for those two weights in the PCC pages say, "on latticinio basket", rather than "double swirl latticinio", but that was just me being a bit lazy when I typed up the brief descriptions for the the full gallery of 365 images!)

[Kari]

My first thought was old St. Louis.  It's a beauty - are you going for it?

[paperweights]

Not a bad finish.  L1265 or almost $2,000 US.  As I said, there was nothing modest about it.