Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: brewster on May 14, 2012, 09:30:36 AM
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Here is a round vase in green glass covered with 'gold' foil. The foil is on the very outer surface and not encased, so it can be felt as surface roughness. The item is 14cm in diameter and weighs 640g. The pontil scar has been hollow ground and the base polished flat.
In another GMB message (http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,47537.msg267523.html#msg267523) it has been suggested this may be an item by Malta Decorative Glass, although there is also some disagreement.
Thanks to Sue (chopin-liszt) and Christine (Lustrousstone) for earlier comments. Any other ideas as to its origins?
Trevor
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If it's definitely foil, it's not Malta Decorative glass
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I'll get some pics of mine - but not today, I'm afraid, got far too much else to get done!
Is it cased, Trevor? Christine's right though - if it's actual foil, it's not MDG.
The rim worries me a little - that's a button rim, not normally something either Boffo did, to my knowledge...
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The decoration is not quite as complex as most MDG seems to be. From memory, that would also be the first bit of MDG to turn up with a ground out pontil mark.
I have seen a couple of bits of coloured glass with foil decoration recently, I think one here on the board and another blue vase I have in the attic, mine is quite crude and has a poorly applied clear trailed rim. No idea where they are from.
John
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Loads of MDG has roughly ground out pontil marks, John.
There are bases which are polished flat, sometimes with the "crescent-shaped pit" remnants of a pontil scar.
There are bases which look as if they've been flattened on the marver - with roughly ground pontil marks, there's one base which has been marver flattened then had the Maltese cross prunt tool stuc in itk, then it has been further polished flat. It's not fully shiny though, like most others.
Having done a check of every bit I have - I do have a very large blue decanter - the entire base of that is roughly ground flat, (except for a few patches of pontil scar pit renmants) with a roughly ground round pontil mark.
So the base of this is consistent with MDG.
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If it is not foil, I don't what else it could be (refer replies #1 and #2). It looks just like what happens when foil is applied and the bubble is expanded further. The image of the base shows it looking most metallic. The material looks a bit burnt or tarnished on the upper surface of the vessel, which is one reason to call it 'gold' rather than gold.
It is not cased. The foil material is on the outer surface.
I'm unsure what is a "button rim" (see reply #2) but I did ask myself whether the short neck has been added on or formed by opening out the parent material of the vessel. There is a slightly indented crease around most of the inner circumference of the neck, which might suggest it was added by trailing on. However it is made of the same colour of material as the body of the vessel and there is no longitudinal seam evident, which suggest forming by opening out the bubble. On the outside, the 'foil' material stops sharply at the neck, but that could happen whether the neck was added on or opened out. On balance, I conclude it was simply opened out.
Trevor
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Ok, at long last some decent pics and close up of a green MDG bottle; also a green globe vase and a blue bottle.
They are all cased, very thinly, in clear glass.
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I've just had a thought - if your globe vase has silver foil on the surface, not cased - it will tarnish.
If you peer at the section in the middle of the bottle close-up, where the jig-saw bits are big, you can see striations in it - from where the silver from the silver chloride has reacted with the clear glass casing, irregularly.
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Thanks for your persistence, Sue. I'll take some close-up photos in the region you suggest on the weekend when I'm home in the daylight. Then you can give me a chemistry lesson.
Trevor
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One way to tell if a bit is silver but tarnished, is just to rub your thumb over it. Your thumb will go black, the silver will shine. ;D
I'm reasonably confident your bit is MDG. I'd buy it if it were for sale at a reasonable price.
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Question - so does MDG have foil in some pieces then please?
thanks
m
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Never spotted any myself....
John
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Sue's second picture of her green stoppered bottle llooks to have foil in it? It looks like you can see where the pieces have broken apart or is it not foil?
m
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Look carefully, the patches are streaky and coloured - it's NOT foil - it's silver chloride melted onto the surface of the vessel, which then does its silver reaction with the glass, the chloride escapes and then it's further blown, which stretches the glass coloured by the silver.
It is not silver foil.
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Interesting. Thanks Sue. I was looking at your second picture down and 'seeing' large patches of silver flakes which to me look like foil. I am going to have to examine carefully other pieces I see now, where I avoid if they look to have foil in which I don't like - it may well be that they aren't foil at all on some occasions and I am missing out on special pieces :)
thanks again
m
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Those large patches are the ones which show the streakiness, :'(
(where the patches are ochrey it's because there was a lot more silver present to colour the glass).
It really is very different to foil.
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Yes, I probably didn't explain myself properly in the post above yours :)
I just meant that I 'see' items with this effect and immediately think they have foil in so I 'switch off' and don't look at them any more... and I'm probably missing out on buying lovely pieces because in some cases, it's as you say, not foil at all, but silver chloride :) and I just haven't looked closely enough at them.
m
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I don't know how common the use of silver chloride has been in glassmaking - particularly not in this unusual manner. Even in Mdina, it's fairly certain to be a Boffo bit... I think it unlikely you've missed something. :-*
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Sorry m, I was not going to risk an explanation of what they are, could only point to what they are not. ;D
Similar effect in the second Mdina globe, the one on the left has the silver chloride drawn out, in the one on the right it has just broken up into little 'tectonic plates'.
Isn't gold foil normally applied to the surface of a vessel? Can it take the temperature necessary if cased?
John
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Gold, being a noble (inert) metal, does not react with anything much - it has to be forced into it. It doesn't react with molten glass - unlike silver.
Gold can be on the surface or under a casing.
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ok, got it and thanks John for the extra descriptive pics as well.
I shall be keeping my eyes peeled now :)
m
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OK, here are some close-ups of the item in question. The matte appearance of the larger tectonic plates (most evident in image 1) is what inclines me to say the item is not cased with glass over the metallic layer. The most dense plates of metal are pitted into the parent material quite noticeably. The differences in density around the item can be felt, suggesting there is no covering layer of glass to smooth it out.
Images 2 and 3 are at increasing magnifications. There is definite texture to the surface to the metallic particles, while the patches between tectonic plates are quite clear of metal. These are features that earlier lead me to describe it as 'foil'. However, I am happy to be corrected on that issue.
Applying the finger test suggested by Sue in reply #9 has neither of the effects she suggests. Rubbing the material does not make the thumb go black nor does the metallic material become any shinier.
Image 4 is taken near the edge of the base (see the second image in the original query for a wider angle). The metal there is bright and shiny, but does not look much like silver to me. It has a 'gold' tint to it, although as earlier I say 'gold' not gold, because that element would not have the reactive properties to be seen here.
I'm happy to supply higher resolution photos by email.
Trevor
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Your vase is definitely uncased. I have no bits of uncased MDG. This does not mean they don't exist.
The brownish bits on the surface of your vase DO look like tarnished silver foil - they've got a lumpy surface - if they were caused by the silver ions reacting with the glass, I would have thought they'd be smoother.
The next thing to try on the surface would be some actual silver polish, to see if the tarnishing is not just very deeply ingrained.
If that does nothing to change the colour, then I would assume it is a silver-glass colouration.
Is there any other potential maker who could be considered? The green colour is exactly right, the overall appearance is SO like Boffo's work - apart from the "button" style of rim - but Boffo would have been familiar with button rims from Mdina even though it was the Boffos who taught the Mdina makers how to make neat, flanged rims.
I would still love to own it - I'm pretty sure it's an unusual variation of green MDG. I wouldn't care if it turned out to be something else - I love it. :)
But I also still want to know what happens with real silver polish. ;D
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There have been a couple of pieces made with foil that have cropped up in the last year or so, a little crudely made with wonky rims, don't remember if they were on the GMB. I had a similar blue vase with foil and badly trailed rim that I sold at a bootsale. Right now I vote not MDG....
John
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I vote Phoenician glass ...possibly.
I bought a vase a while ago which I sent back as I felt the rim had been somehow 'remade', and it did also have a small chip on it. The vase was the same shape as this and the rim was the same or very similar. It was tomato red, a really beautiful colour. I've been wracking my brains to think who I thought had made it and I think it was Phoenician ( I think it was signed and also I have had a Phoenician vase in that red before with trails on it - they do a particularly beautiful red).
and I found this one - it's cased but it is a similar bright green - so Phoenician could be an outside possibility maybe?
http://www.designundklassiker.de/Glas/Vasen/Kruege/Phoenician-Glass-Vase::1534.html
The only thing is Phoenician bases dont' have a polished pontil mark - but perhaps they did at some point?
But...my vase could have also been Guernsey Glass - I wish I'd taken some pics of it. Whatever, it was a very similar shape and rim :-\
Valletta glass is the only other maker I can think of that may have used this green with the foil?
m
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Sorry Sue, but we don't have any real silver polish - probably because we don't have any real silver (Reply #22). I did try a little Metal Magic, which claims silver among its uses. I went very gently, out of concern for doing damage.
The answer is that the obviously metal material (near the base) brightened up, but the more burnt and pitted material appeared to be unchanged. However I may not have tried hard enough to do a proper test for you.
I appreciate the offers to acquire the item. I'm not a dealer and don't otherwise wish to sell it. As a collector I seem to have an eye for the more mysterious of glassy items. I've just listed another of my puzzles on the Board.
Another piece of information is that this item weighs about 620g, which is quite a bit less than the Phoenician Glass item mentioned by flying free (Reply #24).
Trevor
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Never mind, Trevor. :-* As much as anything, I was saying how much I rate/like it.
The Phoenician bit is very interesting, m, but there is no label or image of the mark to go with the attribution on that link. Grrrr! It's the correct green.
Phoenician do do a gorgeous red, not Guernsey. I would rule Guernsey out. They do "pretty pretty" sorts of stuff with frilly bits, I rarely ever "rate" Guernsey - it does nothing for me. Their stuff also tends to be small.
The MDG globe vases I have each weigh 1lb.
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http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/260849791887?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649
I found this as well, but I've no idea if it could be connected.
Green seems similar, and they use gold and silver leaf apparently, but I dont' know if they do anything other than paperweights.
The Phoenician I linked to also looks to be cased over? and yes very much heavier at 4kg although quite a bit bigger as a piece.
m
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That pwt is most likely leftover stock from St John's glass, from the time after they fell out with MH. There's tons of it appearing on ebay over time.
The green is different, I've got a St John's mouse in green, it's more distempery and slightly opaque. It's not desperately well made and has gold foil on, not silver. Gold is much easier to use than silver.
If it's silver foil on your bit, Trevor, this would most likely indicate a date after the technique for using silver foil was "invented" (or is it re-invented, given it has been used in old Venetian glass?) by MH and William Walker when they produced the Azurene range at IoWSG. I do have some very early Azurene bits, made before thy'd got it quite right, and the foil reacts with the glass to produce coloured effects - yet your piece does not seem to have done this in the same sort of way - it's far more sophisticated.
Pic attached. the one on the left does show clearly what the yellowy bluey colour is that appears - that's the sort of bit that gets broken into the "tectonic plates" and can look like the foil itself.
Something very odd has happened with the one on the right! The silver foil must have vapourised, but it has deposited itself around the top of the piece. They both have both silver and gold foil features - the gold is the stuff that's stayed as foil.