Topic: Is this a Strathearn Surface Decorated piece?

[zidori]

This looks like a Strathearn vase, 4 inches tall, but the colour almost feels like it is painted on. Is it a surface decoratd piece or a crude attempt to decieve? Any help with this would be much appreciated.
Regards
Ronnie

http://i9.tinypic.com/2q3oj7a.jpg

[Frank]

Yes it is Ronnie, but before you get too excited they seemed to have made a lot of the colourway and shape/size and they do appear fairly often on eBay. The plus being that now you can feel the difference. Although they dont feel like Monart surface decorated for some reason :?

[luckyslap]

Ronnie,
There is a Strathearn name for this range which unfortunately I have forgotten. Perhaps some Strathearn collector will put me out of my misery and remind me???

[Max]

Forgive my ignorance, but when you say 'surface decorated', do you mean marvered on, or how is it done?    :oops:

[Frank]

Hi Max,

Much of the early Monart had the colouring on the surface and often iridised due to contaminants in the gas which Moncrieff's made themselves. c 1926 they switched to using corporation gas which was much purer and did not iridise the enamels. Conjecture, gives this as the reaon for the switch to casing the enamels with clear glass. Thus with Monart surface decorated examples date from the first two years of production.

There is a element of doubt to some aspects of this but it can never be proven either way as only memories were available on the subject. Their does appear to be some evidence of surface decorated pieces being produced as late as 1929 but that is still being studied and no conclusions yet.

There were probably only a couple of thousand pieces made in the those first two years and cased pieces were being made to and hence this is extremely rare glass. A very small quantity was made in the 1950's by Paul Ysart but there is no way of distinguishing that from earlier pieces.

Vasart made a few pieces of surface decorated glass-ware in the Cloisonné technique. - Mostly lamps and vases and again extremely rare. Up until a few years ago it was assumed the Strathearn had not produced any and when pieces started to appear they came with the story that they were experimental batch of a couple of dozen. Dealers and glassmakers in the area are the source of some wonderful tales about the Ysart's and the glass they produced unfortunately much of it is pure fantasy and disprovable. This particular tale has turned out to be completely wrong and they were a regular part of later production including the small brown piece that started this topic.

[RAY]

i've got a suface decorated paperweight by strathearn

[millarart]

Hi ,
       Ray  are you going to post a picture of your weight as i havent seen a surface decorated one before,,, i do have a nice Strathearn surface decorated lamp though
                               Gary

[Max]

Frank.  Thought I'd come back to this today, when I was less tired.  

Thanks for your detailed explanation, but it assumed a level of knowledge which I don't have.     I am familiar with the Cloisonne technique, due to you posting a photo here a while back, so that's a help with getting to know surface decoration.  What I'm not sure of however, is what part the gas played...

I'll take a look at your site later, perhaps it's on there.  I don't want you to go to the trouble of posting it, if it's already available to me.  

[Frank]

You might have to trawl through a lot of stuff to get explicit answers. Two articles on Monart and one on Moncrieff, probably mention it. As well as in the newsletters. The point is that originally the iridescence often prized on 'surface decorated' Monart was pure accident caused by poor quality home-made gas.

But the eseence of the answer to our question is that the enamels were marvered into the surface:

Cloisonné
Cloisonné (Iridised)
Paisley Shawl
Stoneware
Pumice

Only the terms Cloisonné and Paisley Shawl are factory originals.

[Max]

Cheers for the great pics and answering my question about marvering Frank.       The irridised cloisonne looks superb, with or without its rarity value - wonderful stuff!  

I think going to have to take a look at your site (about time, I hear you say!), as I'd like to find out more...and how that particular technique was achieved.  Maybe I should have bought Chuggy's book...  :roll:

The Pumice is interesting too - it looks rather Scavo to me.  Egads.  More to learn.  

Thanks again.