Although I am sure I have seen at least three of the complex canes elsewhere, I can only find one definite example – the blue 20-cog over white over red 6-point star. I can also provide what I believe is a match to the thin pale yellow rods that are used as the outer layer of 7 alternate canes with 7 pink-white in the inner circle.
One of the other canes I have seen is the pastel-blue 20-cog over clear over 8-lobe “daisy” with complex centre. Or at least, I have seen a cane very similar. And the third one I seem to recognise is the outer row cane with the multiple pink-white cane surround.
Problem is, I can’t be sure where I have seen these but I think at least two of them have been as decoration to bowls (or vases?) likely to have been made at Perthshire Paperweights. Other things that make me think of PP are the use of several, very tidy, 20-cog canes in the same piece, together with other canes having multiple thin rods (or cogs) as an outer surround to a complex cane.
I cannot identify the open spiral white twists cane and neither do I recognise the overall form of the butterfly as being specific to a particular lampworker. But again, I do feel I have seen a butterfly with aventurine body and heavy-looking antennae with curved ends – just can’t find it.
Having said that, I agree that some, if not all, of the canes may well be Vasart Ltd and perhaps even early Ysart. But with those neat 20-cog canes, I don’t favour Ysart Brothers (Vasart) or earlier as being the likely date that the weight was made.
Given that this is a “floating butterfly” weight, it could suggest Salvador Ysart or perhaps one of the sons (other than Paul). But I have seen two other examples in the Perth Museum and Art Gallery, one of which had quite thick antennae looking very much like the pale yellow rods already mentioned. Those weights are pictured in my article “Project Perth” in issue 82 of the Newsletter of the Cambridge Paperweight Circle (August 2003). The interesting thing about those was that the UV fluorescence was Green / Blue (longwave / shortwave) which is consistent with Vasart Ltd through Strathearn and also Perthshire Paperweights up to about 1983.
Back to the blue-white-red cane and the yellow rods … see next post.