Topic: Is this threaded uranium vase Webb?

[Lustrousstone]

A cute little machine threaded posy in opalescent uranium. Is it Webb? Two and five eighth inches tall.

Colour and threadingwise it looks the same as a vase Skelcher IDs as Webb on the basis of its flower crimp rim (Reg 80167) (Big Book of Vaseline Glass, p122). He also calls it Lemonescent, but the other mentions of Webb Lemonescent I can find are Manley and Peterson, but both these are cranberry blending into lemon. Peterson is adamant that cranberry is involved. Art, Feat and Mystery, Woodward, only mentions uranium and arsenic in Lemonescent as in Primrose Pearline and Straw Opal.

So my other question is does anyone know of source material describing Webb's Lemonescent?

[chopin-liszt]

Very good pictures! :kissy:
But this little vase is much prettier in reality. As you know, I've seen it and pawed it and held it to the light and scrutinised it and .... well ... just marvelled at it!

It is beautifully made and it has true opalescence - the fire of the arsenic can be seen quite clearly as well as the glow of the uranium. The shape just lends itself to showing off these amazing and beautifully complementary properties, it's pretty close to "perfection". :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

[Paul S.]

my twopenn'th Christine if I may, just to clarify, perhaps, as it may not be obvious to those without Woodward's book.       Woodward does in fact state, in his "Art, Feat & Mystery" that............'Lemonescent is Webb's name' (i.e.  a name invented by Webb themselves etc.).    I mention this just in case people are unsure as the to actual origin of the name.      Therefore we would assume that if we look in the Webb's archives, we might find the answer  -  or is it possible to ask the author for his source of the name (that is if he is still with us - no disrespect implied).        I have searched all of my books and drawn a blank on the word, completely, so would seem an archaic description, perhaps.

[Lustrousstone]

Anybody?

[flying free]

the ribbing and threading decoration on this looks very similar to a Stevens and Williams vase on page 285 CH British glass 1800-1914 - the coloured vase on the right hand of the pic.  What do you think?
m

[Lustrousstone]

Possibly. Mine has no crystal casing though

[flying free]

this is the piece in the book and there's not an awful lot of similarity seeing the photo enlarged.  Sorry 

http://gorgeousglass.org.uk/collections/getrecord/DMUSE_BH2908/

[chopin-liszt]

They should have checked their background on that image... yuk!

I do agree, m, it's really nothing much like Christine's bit, not when enlarged.

[Bernard C]

A cute little machine threaded posy ...

Christine — is it really machine threaded?   If it is I would expect to be able to mark a "thread", trace it horizontally right round the vase, and find that I was just one "thread" up or down from where I had started.   Unless the vase is badly distorted, it looks to me as if you are likely to be six or eight "threads" away from your starting point, in which case the vase wasn't machine threaded, but six- or eight- ribbed in a dip mould and tightly twisted to produce this effect.   Subsequently it was 24?-ribbed in another dip mould to give the vertical pillared effect.   ... and subsequently this particular example was probably given its final shape by being blown into and spun in a water lubricated open-and-shut shape mould.   Walsh Vesta Venetian was made exactly this way, as was also the more recent Empoli lookalike range that had Eric, me, and many others so confused some years back.

Does this help with attribution?   Probably not, as I believe the technique was well known.   It still is, as, when I showed an example of the Empoli version to an elderly demonstrator on Murano, he was delighted to show me how it was made.   I think he was pleased to have an excuse to get away from the routine agreed with the loud and annoying touts that nearly stopped me going inside.   The twisting process after the first dip mould is complex and interesting, as the blower has to isolate the bubble of air in the glass from the blowing iron to stop it all collapsing when it is twisted.   On another occasion in Murano I saw a similar process at Formia being used to twist applied canes.   Anyway, Walsh is a possible attribution.

I hope that helps,

Bernard C. 

[Lustrousstone]

It's machine threaded; you can follow the thread round clockwise with your thumbnail and it even continues onto the foot