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Glass Discussion & Research. NO IDENTIFICATION REQUESTS here please. => British & Irish Glass => Topic started by: Glen on September 19, 2004, 08:19:34 AM
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I've posted an article and photos of a most unusual George VI Commemorative basket that I acquired last week. It's unusual (and rare, IMHO) in that it is in marigold Carnival. I also have its "twin" in clear flint glass.
In our collection we have several other commemoratives, some with factory trademarks etc., but I have not been able to find (with certainty) the maker of this item. Does anyone know the maker for certain?
On another point, I'd be grateful to hear any opinions on how the item was made (in terms of its mould). Could it have been pressed upside-down?
The article and pics are here.
http://www.geocities.com/carni_glass_uk_2000/GeorgeVI.html
Glen
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Glen - An intriguing production problem. My first reaction is that I am not surprised that it is rare - it must have been a swine to make and I should imagine that, whoever made it, they might well have given it up as uneconomic after making a few.
If you are certain that the handle wasn't applied later (and that in itself would have been most unusual in a pressing) then upside down might have been the answer. I can't make out from the picture how deep the "foot" is - there would have to be some depth there to press it from that side. The lack of applied colour on the handle is also a puzzle. Is there a sharp line where the colour stops or is it fuzzy?
Short of having it in my hands I am rather at a loss beyond the above.
Adam
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Adam - the handle is definitely not applied. It is moulded in, and the mould line is visible from the edge of the bowl, to the handle (about half an inch), and then all the way along the handle, both on the topside and on the underside.
The other obvious mould line is all around the circumference of the bowl, on the exterior side (bottom of the bowl).
The handle is clear - I think intentionally so - but as the iridescent spray was applied, after pressing, you can see that the spray did in fact go up the handle a bit.
My only guess is that it was made upside down. If so, the handle would be formed by two hinged sides of the mould coming together, and the plunger had the actual design on it (basically punch work). The plunger would have had to be an inverted bowl shape, and when it was pulled down, this forced the hot metal down onto the handle shape.
We have Davidson's pearline baskets that are just the same - mould seams along the handle (upper side & underneath), and around the basket underside circumference.
Still pondering.......!
Glen (with help from the more logically - minded Steve :lol: )
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Glen and Adam,
I spent some time considering this thorny problem several years ago and eventually worked it out.
What you must remember is that Greener, Davidson and Sowerby were masters of modifying what came out of the mould. In particular it is difficult to find any examples of Davidson cloud glass that have not been modified in some way post-moulding. For example the 34 pattern comprised everything from a low bowl with a recurved rim, through deep bowls, vases, to a lamp base - all from the same mould!
The 279 "Column" vase has a mould join about 90% of the way up the vase along the top of the nine side panels. So the plain rim was moulded by the plunger, not the three side sections. To extract it from the mould the rim had to be vertical and tapered. The vase would have been pushed onto a conical former to obtain the standard 279 shape, and on to a trough shaped former to obtain the 279D shape.
Back to your basket. Had the basket been moulded as a bowl shape, the two sides of the mould would have had to been lifted out, not pulled apart sideways. The underside of the top of the handle would have been wedge-shaped to match this angle. But the underside of the top of the handle is rounded, not wedge shaped. So the two sides of the mould must have been pulled directly apart, not at an angle. Hence the bowl must have been flat. QED.
The creation of the round or wavy bowl shape must have been post moulding, quickly done while the glass was still plastic. Presumably the basket was pushed or just dropped into an appropriate wavy or plain bowl-shaped former. You can see the evidence for this as there is always a depression on the outside opposite the inside of the handle, where the thicker glass of the handle resisted the change and pulled the glass away from the former.
Supreme masters of this technique were PV and MW, back in the Victorian era. Just look at Thompson, p50, the cruet bottle on the right. The bottle is pressed glass. It must have left the mould with a long, slightly thinning tubular extension to provide enough metal to work into the neck and rim. The shoulder panels are cut. The stopper was completely hand made and cut. Fabulous! I have such a cruet set in stock and a pickle jar from each glassworks. They are simply mindblowing!
I await Adam's comments with some trepidation.
Bernard C. 8)
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Glen:
I think you may have solved an attribution problem that has been in the air for many years.
C20 royal souvenirs were made by all four - including Bagley. Bagley's range is illustrated in the CD (the E VIII photo). Greener/Jobling made the plates attributed to Bagley by Parsons and Bowey - earlier C19 examples carry the Greener lion - including the Knottingley Royal visit plate; and also the seaweed plates. Davidson's contributions are well documented on http://www.cloudglass.com Only Sowerby remains.
We have been looking for a home for the raised lozenge handled baskets. Sowerby has always been a front runner. I think you have gone a long way to proving the case in favour of Sowerby. It's good enough for me.
Back to the Royal visit. I cannot leave such a statement unjustified. I think Jobling just helped out Bagley's with this plate. They had a very flexible mould that could easily be changed to suit; already with the outer part changed for the Coronation a few months earlier. Greener/Jobling had a track record of good relations with the other NE glassworks, particularly as they supplied much of their raw materials. The price for this favour? Probably not money - something far more valuable. One or two pairs of tickets for the Royal table for lunch - beyond price! If a guest list for the Royal visit exists I lay odds on it including one or more Jobling directors and their wives. If it doesn't then it must have been a more normal paid for order.
Regards, Bernard C. 8)
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Glen - Yes, I can see that upside down might be the only possible way, but I would still like an indication of the depth of the "foot" or rim around the bottom (top as pressed!). This is getting a bit like modern bottle making where the bit made first is still called the "finish" as that is how it was with hand made bottles!
Bernard - Yes the wavy effect is obviously done post-pressing. I will take an aspirin and then continue getting my head around the rest of your description. I am intrigued by your comment re Jobling supplying the others with material. What was it? In my time if I ran short of anything (not often - honestly!) I would borrow some from friends in one of the other factories. That would either be returned as material or paid for depending on the wishes of the lender. Certainly no regular supply of any sort from anyone. I could still just about manage from memory the names of all Sowerby's suppliers - how's that for useless information?
Adam
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Hi Bernard,
I was intrigued by your statement 'Greener/Jobling had a track record of good relations with the other NE glassworks, particularly as they supplied much of their raw materials'. I wonder where you got this information from? What raw materials did they supply?
On a different tack. For the Edward VIII/ George VI, Sowerby made ashtray(s), a half pint mug and for Edward VIII a bust. Some of the Edward VIII articles do survive - we have an ashtray and a Mug. The Pottery Gazette did some pictures of various commemorative wares from various companies including Sowerby (but not Davidson).
Regards
Chris
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Bernard, Adam, Chris - many, many thanks for your interesting responses. There's much to ponder over - and many things I want to mull through and discuss with Steve (who is away on business). I'll post a message when I've chatted it all through with him, as he's much better on "moulds" etc than I am.
More soon................ :roll:
Glen
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Chris,
I still have a bee in my bonnet about Directors being on good terms, although no evidence other than they were in C19, and I see no reason for them not to have been in C20.
I will chew it over on the plane back.
Bernard C
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Hi Glen
Have you had a look at The Glassman (John Bell ) on his web site he gives a history of some of the glass makers eg, Greener Dadvidson Sowerby.
On the page for Greener there are photos of two baskets with what look like handles all in one like yours, both have early RD No. Could Greener have made your basket.
What did Jobling supply? on the same page it says Jobling supplied minerals, and they were Greeners principal creditor, take a look and let me know what you think, should be records of some kind.
Tony.
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Tony - many thanks for your reply and suggestion. I had checked out John Bell's website (some luscious glass) but I don't feel that the baskets are quite like my George VI example. I've actually got a blue pearline example of the twig handled one shown there - and we've compared it to the larger George VI one. They are surely made in the same way, but they are not identical in terms of mould etc.
So I'm really still at the point where I'm saying it could be Sowerby or Greener. No proof as to which (if that's the case) yet.
More later - and still pondering here :lol:
Glen
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Lots of ponderings that need furthering perhaps, please :)
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If my ponderings had been furthered, I'd have posted. :shock:
I'd welcome anyone else's ponderings, though. :lol:
Glen
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My wife and I have three baskets like this: crystal, amber, and blue. I cannot offer any help as to their manufacturer, but I can tell you a bit about how they were probably made. I have had the mouldmakers at Fenton Art Glass look at all three baskets of our baskets as well as several other similar ones (i. e., pressed handle) made in England or the US (there is a US Patent dating from the 1880s for such an item, and I am still researching this). One basket made in England actually has what would be called a “looped” handle, and there is also an English-made basket commemorating a bridge that is made this way.
The Fenton mouldmakers are of the opinion that the baskets were not pressed upside down. Such would necessitate all the figure work to be on the plunger, a difficult proposition, indeed.
A press mould consists of these parts: mould, bottom plate, plunger, and ring. Typically, each of these is a separate piece, and all must fit together snugly. The various joint marks on the basket suggest that the plunger is bifurcated (two parts which come together during pressing) and the handle is created by what is a called a deep ring. There is a joint mark right across the center of the basket and directly below the center of the handle.
The key technological problem is getting the glass to flow properly to create the handle. We are still pondering whether this piece was simply pressed to shape (the best case scenario economically) or whether a former was employed after pressing.
If you have the book devoted to the L. G. Wright Glass Co. by Measell/Roetteis look at figs. 904-905 and 909-910. These will help you visualize how a plunger can be bifurcated.
James Measell, Historian
Fenton Art Glass Co.
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I've just had a thought about Bernard's "materials" allegedly supplied by Jobling. There used to be an outfit called, I think, E J Jobling-Purser who were maybe half a mile from the Jobling factory. They supplied fuel oils (not to Jobling in my time I think) and were certainly connected to the family. I think some early histories refer to this.
Fuel oil is certainly a "material", although not in the sense we were thinking about. A possibility, allowing for a little confusion of names?
Adam D.
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Steve and I have a new website – although it is predominantly devoted to Carnival Glass it also includes info on pressed glass etc. In the course of our recent Carnival research we discovered the answer to a mystery that has been eluding us for many years: the research and the illustrative analysis is shown on our new website.
Here is the topic that started our hunt for the answer (I wrote it in September 2004)
Very unusual George VI Commemorative Basket
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,339.0.html
The maker was not Sowerby, nor Davidson, nor Greener/Jobling, but was in fact Matthew Turnbull of Sunderland.
My new website address is:
http://www.thistlewoods.net
To see the article on Turnbull go to News on the top bar.
Glen
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Well done both. Is your other website coming down eventually?
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:hiclp: Fantastic stuff, Glen!
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Result topic merged with original topic to keep all the information in one place. 8)
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I would have to do a bit of re-reading to give all the details but if memory serves me right Jobling Purser were suppliers of chemicals to the glass industry and (im struggling now) didnt they financially take over Greener when things went belly up and change the name to Jobling but still stay in business as Jobling Purser chemicals?
UK GLASS