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Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Unresolved Glass Queries => Topic started by: christranslates on June 19, 2008, 05:16:40 PM

Title: can anyone identify this big blue streaky jar or vase please?
Post by: christranslates on June 19, 2008, 05:16:40 PM
Can anyone identify this, or point me in the right direction please  :huh: It's a tad under 22cm high with a rough cut top, seems quite old, another item from Uncle's collection ... Chris  :)
Title: Re: can anyone identify this big blue streaky jar or vase please?
Post by: Frank on June 19, 2008, 06:42:13 PM
Weird is the base flattish? Probably left unfinished to accommodate a metal fitting. Colouring seems familiar but grey cells failing.

Could be from a druggists range.
Title: Re: can anyone identify this big blue streaky jar or vase please?
Post by: christranslates on June 19, 2008, 09:10:28 PM
Here's a photo of the base which has a circular indentation, and a closer-up of the colour to boost your grey cells ... :D
Title: Re: can anyone identify this big blue streaky jar or vase please?
Post by: Lustrousstone on June 20, 2008, 06:14:24 AM
It was made in a two-part mould, you can see the diagonal seam. I have seen square bottles made in moulds like this, but with more top shaping.
Title: Re: can anyone identify this big blue streaky jar or vase please?
Post by: christranslates on June 21, 2008, 08:57:26 AM
Hi Christine, you're right it was definitely made in a mould from the diagonal seam at the top, but the bottom semms to be one piece. how do they do that?  :huh: Chris
Title: Re: can anyone identify this big blue streaky jar or vase please?
Post by: nigel benson on June 21, 2008, 09:26:30 AM
Hi Chris,

I remember going to Ely Catheral and looking at the Stained Glass Collection there in 2004. In the window bays of the shop area for the collection there were large examples of vases identical in shape.

We were told when we enquired that the sides were cut out and used to provide glass for making sections of stained glass windows. Hence there was no need to finish the top as it would have become waste.

Naturally enough there are cylinder versions of these vases that would be cut top and bottom, then cut vertically and opened out by heating. These provided larger sections of glass. In other words, a small version of how sheet glass was once produced.

Two makers that come to mind are James Powell & Sons (Whitefriars), and Hartley Wood.

Nigel
Title: Re: can anyone identify this big blue streaky jar or vase please?
Post by: christranslates on June 21, 2008, 10:00:18 AM
Wow Nigel  :clap: I think you've got it ! It sounds a very complicated way of producing stained glass BUT it absolutely ties in with Uncle's (inherited) glass collection as he was a big fan of Whitefriars and Hartley Wood (I've got a Hartley Wood vase listed on eBay finishing tomorrow - hope I'm allowed to say that here  :huh: ).
Very many thanks for this and well done  :hiclp: :hiclp: that's great!
Chris
Title: Re: can anyone identify this big blue streaky jar or vase please?
Post by: Frank on June 21, 2008, 12:07:17 PM
Hartley Wood was the one it reminded me of.  :D It looks like it was made in a fairly standard type of bottle mould, so you can probably toss in any of the 100 or so UK bottle-makers too.

It seems an odd way to get stained glass materials when there were/are plenty of UK makers that would have done it the cylinder way and these days the makers of stained glass are fairly large scale. Powell would have been one of those, as would Chance, L&M, Pilkington and about 53 others in the UK alone.

Time frame 1900-60. Financial value low, desirability high  8)
Title: Re: can anyone identify this big blue streaky jar or vase please?
Post by: Lustrousstone on June 21, 2008, 04:52:33 PM
I suspect the sides opened out from a base plate.
Title: Re: can anyone identify this big blue streaky jar or vase please?
Post by: Frank on June 21, 2008, 04:56:19 PM
There is a seam on the base, it is round.
Title: Re: can anyone identify this big blue streaky jar or vase please?
Post by: christranslates on June 22, 2008, 05:51:39 AM
 :cheers: Frank and Christine ! Fascinating ! 
In view of Frank's last remark  and because it looks great with flowers in it, I think  I'll probably end up keeping this one.   ;)
Thank you so much everyone,
Chris  :)
Title: Re: can anyone identify this big blue streaky jar or vase please?
Post by: Bernard C on June 22, 2008, 06:54:53 AM
Another possibility, albeit remote, is this range (http://glassgallery.yobunny.org.uk/displayimage.php?pos=-8614) by Haden, Mullett & Haden.

Bernard C.  8)
Title: Re: can anyone identify this big blue streaky jar or vase please?
Post by: Frank on June 22, 2008, 09:18:55 AM
Which looks, from a couple of those shapes, like they might have been passed off as Gray-Stan. Like to see those in colour.
Title: Re: can anyone identify this big blue streaky jar or vase please?
Post by: nigel benson on June 22, 2008, 10:01:18 AM
Hi,

It occurs to me that if a company is producing stained glass windows and they also make glass - why would they outsource if it can adequately and economically produce what is required inhouse (and with the added advantage of control on the quality)? Powell was a good example of this - there are pictures of the muff production method on pages 196 and 209 of Whitefriars Glass, James Powell & Sons of London, the London Museum book. 'Muffs' are shown as the cylinder method of blowing sheet glass.

As for the size, it would also allow the possiblity for the production of specialised colourways if required. More importantly, it followed in the tradition of the size of glass used in stained glass windows with the associated necessity to use lead to join the pieces together. Indeed Powell's quarries (a type of glass panel) attracted the attention of Charles Winston, an authority on medieval stained glass who wrote Hints on Glass Painting in 1847.

"He persuaded the Powells to experiment with their traditional maff, or blown sheet, glass. The sheets in 'Winston colours' that resulted met with great enthusiasm from architects of the day." page 34 - as above.

Whilst I have been writing this, there has been another post.

The Haden, Mullett & Haden pieces could only be passed of as Gray-stan to those who have not handled the latter. They are too heavier construction to mistaken as Gray-stan (and the colour is laid in differently). There is indeed a similarity with the swirling.

Nigel
Title: Re: can anyone identify this big blue streaky jar or vase please?
Post by: Patrick on June 22, 2008, 11:02:20 AM
Hi,
Just looked a Tom Hill (Whitefriars) workbook entry for 27th April 1942 and there is mention of 72 Green Boxes being made.
Image by kind permission of Museum of London.

Regards, Patrick.
Title: Re: can anyone identify this big blue streaky jar or vase please?
Post by: nigel benson on August 14, 2008, 07:24:20 PM
Hello,

Earlier in the month on our return from King's Lynn and the 'Hi Sklo Lo Sklo@ czech glass exhibition I decided that we would make a small detour via Ely Cathedral, if only to check my memory ;)

Brilliant, the old grey cells didn't let me down. In the shop area to the Stained Glass Museum low and behold there was a display all about stained glass and its production. There was an example of a Muff in streaky amber and a cube bottle vase like the one that started this thread.

The label reads:

"NORMAN SLAB BOTTLE: The glass has been blown into a box-shaped mould, cooled and then divided down its edges. The pieces are thickest in the centre. They were a feature of the 19th century Gothic Revival in England"

We now have a name for this type of bottle vase, which is great :)

Cheers, Nigel