Topic: Victorian or Georgian desert dish bowl help please.

[brucebanner]

I have been reading up (believing it or not) on old glass and think this simple pattern was common on 1830's 1840's  bit's of glass. It has a lot of wear to the base with a polished pontil, i'm not even sure what it's for as  i keep coming across this size of dish and 9 times out of ten there described as sweet meat dishes or bon bon dishes, it was only ten pence so with the chip i thought it was worth asking the question here to see if i'm on the right track or not.

It's 41/2 inches in height, 4 1/2 inches across the rim and 3 1/2 inches across the base

[Paul S.]

looks more like an 'open/unlidded sugar'.             Too deep I think for a comport or sweetmeat dish - and date wise I think it's a bit later than you're suggesting - perhaps more like 1860 - 1890.
The capacity of the bowl looks more adequate for a sugar - quite deep - although I suspect in reality the piece was versatile.           Can't remember when granular sugar became commonplace, but no doubt glass containers for sugar rocketed in popularity as soon as this occured, sometimes they're common at boot sales.            Prior to which you needed sugar tongs to cut pieces from a larger lump.

In  which books have you been looking?