Topic: Sowerby pattern 1408 posy, RD 334637 of 28th April, 1879

[agincourt17]

An uncommon Sowerby 2-handled posy or spill vase in opalescent glass, the underside embossed with the Sowerby peacock head trademark and the registry date lozenge for 28 April 1879 - Parcel 7. Approximately 8cm tall. The sides are decorated with raised images of a flying crane (or is it perhaps a heron?) with an eel or something similar held in its beak.
(Permission for the re-use of the first three images granted by Jon Stockton).

Sowerby pattern 1408, shown on page 8 of pattern book IX (1882). Simon Cottle (page 102 of 'Sowerby - Gateshead Glass') correlates it with RD 334367 from a bundle of 10 Sowerby designs registered on that date.

Fred.

[Paul S.]

Here is a copy of the original factory drawing now in the National Archives at Kew, lacking, as might have been expected, the moulded decoration seen on the example posted above.
The bird is possibly a stork, flying on unaware that it has long since dropped and lost the baby.

Do we have the other nine from this group (334634 - 43), Fred  .........   or are we missing all or any?

[agincourt17]

Thank you for the drawing, Paul.

I must say that I never considered a stork for the bird - why?

We don't have the design representations for any of the other nine RDs in the group, and I only have photos of single examples of Sowerby pattern 1404 (which Cottle correlates to RD 334640) and Sowerby pattern 1394 (which Cottle correlates to RD 334641), so drawings would assist enormously in clarifying the correlations between RDs and Sowerby pattern numbers for the whole bundle. In fact, Cottle only gives pattern numbers corresponding to six of the 10 RDs in the bundle.

Fred

[Paul S.]

o.k., will do the others later in the week.                  It appears we need a correction to the wrong date in the subject heading, which I hadn't seen earlier.     The date of this group of Registrations is 28th April, and not September  -  perhaps the Mods. can amend  -  thanks

[KevinH]

Title amended.

[Paul S.]

thanks.

[Paul S.]

attached are copies of Kew images for Sowerby Regs. 334634/5/6 and 334638/9, together with description taken from the factory drawings.     These descriptions are included just in case they're illegible when looking at the drawings on the screen - unfortunately, there's the usual loss of sharpness with these pictures.
These five carry the same Registration date as the opalescent vase in the original post from Fred - so we now have Kew pix of six from this group of ten.          Four appear here, with this post, and there's another that will flip over.

The first design in this group is the plate under Rd. 334634 - unusual perhaps for Sowerby to make a pictorial example - I've seen shed loads of their plates but I'm sure they've all been plain and lacked any sort of real life image.           It seem that only part of the wording on the factory drawing is given by Simon Cottle in his 'Gateshead Glass'  -  it's just possible the reason for this was the difficulty in reading all the words - I'm fairly confident that the whole description reads  ..........'New Design 9 in. Plate - Geese & Scalloped Edge Continued Around', which seems to make sense  -  it would look odd to have just an inch or so of scalloping and two geese.
I don't know of any examples showing in the books - has anyone seen this plate in the flesh?

[Paul S.]

and the fifth item today...........    some more tomorrow.

[agincourt17]

Thank you for these design representations, Paul - a lot of work!

At the moment, I can't see obvious pattern matches for Sowerby RDs 334634 or 334635.

RD 334636 corresponds to Sowerby pattern 1409 vase (page 8, pattern book IX of 1882).

RD 334638 corresponds to Sowerby pattern 1415 vase (page 8, pattern book IX of 1882) - as per Cottle

RD 334639 corresponds to Sowerby pattern vase 1410 (page 8, pattern book IX of 1882) - as per Cottle (except that he describes it as a salt cellar).

Does anyone have photos of actual examples of patterns 1409, 1415 or 1410 to show, please?

Fred.

[Paul S.]

here are the remaining four Registrations - 334640 - 41 - 42 and 43, and as usual these were intended to protect just the shape, and none of the decoration.
Just by chance I noticed that there's an example of the first of these in Sheilagh Murray's book 'THE PEACOCK AND THE LIONS' - page 62 I think - plate 8 - and her example is in opalescent glass, similar to the piece shown by Fred at the beginning of this thread.            So, if you have the book, you can see how attractive Murray's vase is, with what the lady describes as 'Classical figures' on each of the four middle panels.
Murray's comments regarding datelines for the manufacture of Sowerby's 'opalescent' glass is particularly interesting, especially as she also comments on the same product from Lalique, but which was produced at a later date  -  but thought by many to have been a Lalique invention.