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Author Topic: Blue and white overlay vase - vine and grapes decoration - enamel?  (Read 21663 times)

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Offline flying free

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Re: Blue and white overlay vase - vine and grapes decoration - enamel?
« Reply #60 on: August 19, 2013, 11:39:13 PM »
Hi Mike :)
thanks so much for continuing to look for me (I'm off glass at the moment as head in other things ... eldest's A levels results, poss uni applications etc... very exciting and very stressful lol)
I'm just going to have a look back through the thread re the red one with the stag and vines on and see what I thought, that's if I'd found it before.  Unfortunately that one is only 'attributed' Franz Zach, and also the vine leaves aren't the same as mine, so no closer on the definites but.... it is the same technique as mine and seems to have been cut  in the same way.
I'll go have a look now.  The ones on the Christie's link I 'think' are either Josephinenhutte or Harrach, can't remember which but think Harrach iirc.  There are many similarities in certain aspects, of mine with other pieces though.  It's hard to make a judgement really unless it's the same cameo technique.  That is the deciding factor to start with I think.
Thanks so much again - I really appreciate your interest :)
m

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Offline Baked_Beans

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Re: Blue and white overlay vase - vine and grapes decoration - enamel?
« Reply #61 on: August 20, 2013, 05:04:42 AM »
Sorry m , you did post it before !  :-[

I was looking at Sothebys back cats.. and then thought '..ah I'll search under Bohemian and see what comes up' and didn't check your previous posts , I thought it looked familiar ! The bunch of grapes looks quite close but as you say the leaves are different and more refined.

As an aside , I was reading in the 'Guide to Czech & Slovak Glass' by Diane Foulds that in 1771 there were 312 decorators in  Kamenicky Senov and by 1875 it was 1000 ! The first decorating school in the world was founded there in 1856. The book goes on to say that so much glass was being decorated there that they used to run out of it ! The glass was transported to Kamenicky from other parts of the country (at considerable cost). So there was a need to set up a local glass factory there and the first one was the Adolf Ruckl works founded on 1886 . You probably know all of this but I just thought I would add it here as it's interesting ! :D

Your piece might well have been decorated in Kamenicky Senov but made in another area of Bohemia , if it pre-dates 1886  .

Good luck with your eldest's Uni applications , it's easier this year as the limits for each Uni have been axed !

Cheers, Mike.
Mike

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Offline flying free

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Re: Blue and white overlay vase - vine and grapes decoration - enamel?
« Reply #62 on: August 20, 2013, 08:37:24 AM »
thank Mike :)

yes the vine and the grapes don't look as though they are by the same hand as mine (the leaves don't have a curved outline, they are more pointy, and the grapes looks the same but they just aren't, can't explain why lol:)  )- but the type of cameo is exactly the same.

And yes it could certainly have been made in one place and decorated in another.  But those places and decorators will be quite limited IMHO as I said earlier in the thread. 

It was difficult to successfully make three layer overlay glass - there are not that many pieces around made in that time period of mid 19th (and they would have been expensive at that time).  In addition to which, making cameo such as this on three layer glass, I believe would also have been a fairly difficult task as I've illustrated by previous comments and sources in this thread (see my quote below which includes a comment at the beginning from the V&A).
Even without the cameo design in the middle of the body of the vase, I can’t think there were that many of the three (i.e. transparent or opaline base with two more coloured overlays on) layer pieces produced at this time,  given the difficulty of producing overlay glass and certainly David Whitehouse's book makes no mention of Bohemian cameo glass of mid 19th century at all despite mentioning cameo from various places in earlier eras and English cameo of later in the 19th

I have a few books on this time period and  more on glass of  the time periods of either side and there are very  few pieces of three layer overlay glass, never mind those that also have cameo decoration as well.

'An additional comment they made was :
‘The techniques used are not that of Franz Paul Zach, indeed this blue cut casing combined with different designs of engraved and etched scenes was popular in Bohemia at that time with a number of factories producing examples’.

Firstly regarding the ‘popularity’:
I have searched extensively, but although I can find a number of pieces in a similar ‘ ish’ vein, I can only find  two (possibly three) the same and one that is very similar (in the Corning) to mine. 

I just don’t think they were that prolific and I think that the pieces the V&A refer to are mostly two layer  and cameo engraved pieces i.e one colour over clear (see links I’ve given below to pieces similar to mine but only two layers).

 
-'

 
see also my previous comment here:

'c)   There is a book online written by David Whitehouse called English Cameo Glass in the Corning Museum of Glass and in it on page 7 under Preface he writes:
‘The first cameo glass vessels were made by the Romans between about 25 B.C. and A.D. 50. A handful of vessels were produced by Roman glassworkers in the fourth century A.D., rather
more were made by Islamic craftsmen between the ninth and 11th centuries, and Chinese glass cutters in and after the 18th century made more cameo glasses than all their predecessors combined. Nevertheless, cameo glass was comparatively rare until the late 19th century, when glassmakers in the Stourbridge area of central England produced tens of thousands of objects for consumption at home and abroad.’
'

So, I still think it would be possible to find the house that made the blank and also the decorator. But it will require me to match up all the evidence in my Walter Spiegl book (black and white pics and German descriptions which is quite time consuming for me to translate), with the incorrectly attributed colour pieces available online and then check the way they have been cut for evidence against those that are marked or are identified firmly as, for example, Karl Pfohl/Franz Zach and the other decorators mentioned in the Harrach book.

phew....  at some point I'll get round to it lol :)

Uni...easy?  lol, I would say not, but I suppose it does depend on what you want to do and where you want to go. For the selective 2% of academic bright sparks it may be easier, for the other 98%, definitely not so in my opinion.
 My son will end up owing on a loan of £56,000 as he needs to do a 4yr Masters (plus a 5th year in industry) for what he wants to do -  for taking on that kind of debt, as well as our money to top it up,  you want a good uni/course/degree! (and you need the grades to match (he needs A*AA) - he's at a non-selective state school) I definitely would not rather be in his shoes :)
I wasn't aware Uni limits had been 'axed'?  this year they were reduced to ABB.  Has that been reduced further for next year?  I suspect some Uni's will be struggling very much next year - the government has increased loans to £9K/yr from £3K, as well as tampering with the AS and A level grade boundary requirements, as well as some  Uni's increasing their grade requirements, all in one fell swoop.  That is going to have consequences, for example there was a report at the weekend that 40% of Language departments at Unis were going to be cut!  Last year I read that even some Russell Group unis struggled to fill their places leaving them hundreds of thousands of pounds down for the next three years.  It's going to get stinky.
m

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Offline Baked_Beans

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Re: Blue and white overlay vase - vine and grapes decoration - enamel?
« Reply #63 on: August 20, 2013, 09:25:43 PM »
Cheers m,

Have you thought of sending pics. plus the link to the pink example (by the same hand ) to the Kamenicky Senov Glass Museum ? The museum is even housed in the former decorating workshops of J & L Lobmeyr Co. (suppiers to the court of Austrian Emperor Franz Josef I).  They could help in the ID and age I'm sure.  Even if they didn't know, they would forward it on to someone who might ! It would be great to find out what they say, wouldn't it ?

As for the uni limits , so I heard on the radio, there is now (this year) no limit to the number of students that each uni can take. They can still set their own high standards of entrance qualifications but they are no longer restricted to a certain intake number. This is what I have gathered. So it gives a better chance for students  to be able to go to their first choice uni , given they have the grades. It sure is expensive though and a four year course is even worse !  :( 

Mike  :)
Mike

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Offline flying free

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Re: Blue and white overlay vase - vine and grapes decoration - enamel?
« Reply #64 on: August 20, 2013, 09:37:52 PM »
no I hadn't thought of that - great idea Mike and I will give it a try when I get some space.  Thank you :)

I'll investigate the Uni grade issue a bit more - thanks for pointing that out. 
m

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Re: Blue and white overlay vase - vine and grapes decoration - enamel?
« Reply #65 on: September 16, 2013, 10:43:45 PM »
well, this is an odd thing
two years earlier than the one Mike found which sold in 2006, this one was sold in 2004 apparently as  'Webb'
It is marked - is this a fake mark? I think so from checking marks.
http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/495109
That wasn't mentioned on the one sold in 2006 - not to say it's not the same piece, but they could be different pieces.  It's difficult to be sure because the pics are from a different angle.  If they are, then that's two footed bowls in the decor.
The listing Mike found is here - it is the same height
http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/2089227
Looking at the first one sold in 2004 you can see through it to the other side and the pattern seems to match that showing on the one sold in 2006, so I think they might be one and the same piece.  Perhaps the owner found out the mark was fake and that it was Bohemian and so it was resold as such (mark not mentioned in listing in 2006).
m

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Re: Blue and white overlay vase - vine and grapes decoration - enamel?
« Reply #66 on: October 12, 2013, 09:08:31 PM »
I was very excited to find this reference this evening.

It will disappear in time as it is a chromolyth being sold on Ebay but it is listed as:#

Name of Print - Ornamental Glass
Date - 1863
Source - Masterpieces of Industrial Art and Sculpture
By - J B Waring, engraved by John Day

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1863-Antique-COLOR-Print-ORNAMENTAL-PAINTED-GLASS-Belgian-Exposition-/330873099532?pt=Art_Prints&hash=item4d0992d50c

I believe I can just make out at the bottom of the print, that it says
Glass by W Hoffman Prague

The red cameo piece in the chromolyth is similar in subject depiction to two Karl Pfohl pieces in Glas des Historismus one on page 194 and the other page 193.
The Chromolyth dates to 1863 :)

It is reprinted in the Harrach book page 198 (From Neuwelt to the Whole World) and captioned Glass by the Wilhelm HOffman Company at the Great London Exposition 1862 but is quite small and dark.
m
m

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Re: Blue and white overlay vase - vine and grapes decoration - enamel?
« Reply #67 on: October 12, 2013, 11:52:35 PM »
http://www.prazskagalerie.cz/en/news/from-editorial/crisis-and-boom-in-glass-and-jewellery-industry-1
second picture down on this link is one of the similar pieces I was talking about in my post above.
m

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Offline Baked_Beans

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Re: Blue and white overlay vase - vine and grapes decoration - enamel?
« Reply #68 on: October 13, 2013, 08:19:05 AM »
That earlier auction listing you found (well spotted !) of the one I found certainly looks like the same piece . As you say the pattern matches on the other side . Unless some sort of pattern template was used , I think you can say it must be one of the same item. They may have decided to photograph it from the other side (second time around) so that it looks like a different piece.
Mike

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Re: Blue and white overlay vase - vine and grapes decoration - enamel?
« Reply #69 on: October 13, 2013, 08:32:10 AM »
yes I think it's the same piece.

I'm going to the V&A on Tuesday to photograph glass :)
I shall be photographing some pieces very closely this time. 
Can't wait.
m

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