Topic: Vase ID needed for cased Mdina?

[POOLED70]

Hi, was hoping for some help with this one please. I think its Mdina but a couple of things are putting doubt in my mind, 1) I have never seen Mdina with this type of heavy casing to the base, 2) The clear casing is actually a pale blue/green  and 3) the glass doesn't seem to be of the greatest quality. The colour and patterns and silver chloride streaks lead me to believe it is Mdina!!?? I'm confused HELP

[glassobsessed]

Much more likely to be Mtarfa, they made quite a few different shapes with this colour, I assume towards the beginning of their production. There are many similarities with Mdina - not surprising as there was a crossover of designs, techniques and workers.

If you search the board there are a few examples with the same colours, they are often more splodgy than linear as in your example.

Nice vase, how tall is it?

John

[Andy]

Agreed. Not Mdina
As John suggests, perhaps a maker with a connection in some way
Andy

[glassobsessed]

This is the style more commonly seen with simialr colours (Sue's photos): http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,33967.msg183835.html#msg183835

Here is an example with streaky colours: http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,18860.0.html

John

[POOLED70]

Thanks John and Andy, looks right for Mtarfa, any idea of date?
Dave

[chopin-liszt]

Wow, that was some good digging, John!
I think this colourway came early on in Mtarfa's output.

And I have a correction to add to the first link - the lemon squeezer base IS Mtarfa after all. Best correct that.

[glassobsessed]

It did not take long to find those threads.

Mtarfa was started in 1981, if we are right about it being an early colourway then date is probably early to mid 80s.

John

[POOLED70]

Thanks all for the info. John, it is 4.5" high by 3.5" at its widest and weighs in at 0.7kg

[glassobsessed]

A heavy wee beastie then.

There is a bowl finishing on ebay soon which has similar streaky colours and may well be from Mtarfa. There is also an inside out vase in the same colours but the splodgy Mtarfa variety. Just goes to show that various designs really did migrate from one works to the other.

John

[chopin-liszt]

 

It's the very close similarity in both shapes and the use of similar colour techniques between Mdina and Mtarfa in this colourway that leads me to believe this is the earliest Mtarfa - they have diversified and grown in a different direction quite a bit since then.