Glass Discussion & Research. No ID requests here please. > British & Irish Glass

Is this a Strathearn Surface Decorated piece?

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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.

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