Topic: Strathearn colours

[Helen W.]

My Strathearn vase, in a very dark charcoal blue with a hint of red, aventurine speckles, and six sets of characteristic Ysart-y whorls around the body. The photos I've taken demonstrate mainly how difficult it is to photograph such a dark piece effectively, though I've had to use a borrowed camera that doesn't have the manual settings I'm used to using. I might post more when my own camera comes back from repair. I need to think about how I can best display this piece too.

My question is: did Strathearn produce much glass in strong, dark colours? I associate the firm with semi-opaque pastel colours and harlequin spangles.

It would be great if other members could post pics from their own collections. 

[glassobsessed]

I tend to think Vasart when I see the softer pastel colours, I dont have a lot of experience with Strathearn for me to say yea or nay.

To get these photos I used a dark background and lit them from the front.

John

[keith]

This is my only dark coloured piece...

[Helen W.]

Gorgeous pieces, thanks both of you.  I think I might have been confused by a recent trip to an antiques centre, where a mixed display of pastel Strathearn and Vasart pieces were virtually indistinguishable from one another.

Thanks for the tip about using a dark background and front lighting. I'll give it a try. I'm currently researching  a home set-up for photographing 2D artwork, but as my book on this area says, photographing glass is a totally different game and results in more bad language and hair-tearing than any other area of practice.     

[chopin-liszt]

Adding my voice to the notion that yes, Strathearn did use lots of wonderful, deep, strong colours, Strathearn is much more Monart-y than Vasart-y.
(and not nearly so expensive,  )
I adore the deep, clear, petrol green colour they used.
They did use clear colours, much more than Monart or Vasart ever did.
But my bit is upstairs and my butler/valet is on holiday.

They also used moulds to make the shapes, which Monart and Vasart didn't.
(Although I'm waiting to be shot down over that by somebody who knows more than I do! )

[Helen W.]

Thanks for the guidance, Sue. I haven't seen a piece in the green you describe, but I see a new area of collecting opening up before me... I hope your glass valet/porter returns ASAP!

I've just noticed that Glassobsessed's orangey vase is captioned 'StuartStrathearn'. Did the various successors to Monart and Vasart use colour in this way until they finally closed for good? 

[glassobsessed]

That was a mistake on my part when giving the photo a file name, the vase has the leaping salmon prunt on the base. Well spotted!

[chopin-liszt]

The Stuart Strathearn "Dark Crystal" coloured pieces don't contain swirls. You'll find red and black, you might be very lucky and find blue and black.
Green and black, I've only ever seen in catalogue photos.
I suppose they did sort of carry on with similar designs - but they introduced moulds at Strathearn.

Very early on, at Monart, the working conditions and materials available were very primitive indeed, but they did have the expertise of Salvador and his sons were really rather talented too.
They could work miracles.
At Vasart, the wars got in the way of them being able to source brightly coloured enamels, which is why they're mostly all pale pastels. They were able to get hold of celadon glass, (that ubiqitous opaque pale green. You know the one.) frequently used in bathrooms and kitchens at the time.
Strathearn built on what went on in both; Stuart Strathearn was smaller and later and the Dark Crystal range is, i think, all they did in coloured glass.
They did do tall, slim, clear solifleurs, and a lot of small clear posy vases with engraving/etching, more a modern Stuart influence rather than the coloured one of the Ysarts.

[Helen W.]

I've seen quite a few Stuart Strathearn pieces for sale that have a black body with gold leaf applied around the middle, and are attributed to a Iestyn Davies design during his brief stint with the company in the 1980s. I take it this is a different range to the Dark Crystal (which I've never knowingly seen)?

[chopin-liszt]

Yes, Iestyn Davies did design the Ebony and Gold bits, he'd trained at Isle of Wight Studio Glass when Michael Harris was developing the Azurene ranges and using gold and silver leaf. You won't find sliver leaf on Stuart Strathearn and the rims are cut and polished, not heat finished as they were at IoWSG.
He also designed "Impressions" for Stuart Strathearn, which is really quite like some of the IoWSG ranges, with tweaks to the colours.
Both Dark Crystal and Impressions images come up in a web search. There's more black Dark Crystal appears than I expected and I'd forgotten about that one.
And Ebony and Gold bits sneak in.

This is a link to the bit about them in Scotland's Glass.

http://www.scotlandsglass.co.uk/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=16:glass-makers-a-c&id=90:stuart-strathearn-some-notes