Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass Animals & Figurines => Topic started by: Frank on March 26, 2005, 04:12:00 PM
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Well, with all the creatures that are appearing in various thread and no-one owning up to collecting them :wink:
Who is :?:
Can you identify who made any of these
http://tinypic.com/2cwwmu <---- Mod: Link dead
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Is the dachshund with the turquoise ears not your Pirelli?
I've got a few amimals/fish/dragons. They live on top of the toilet cistern or along the ridge on top of the woodwork in the loo. They're smallish, and the only things that will fit on a shelf only 1.5 inches wide! If I've got a shelf, I'll put glass on it :D Cheers, Sue
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No nothing Pirelli in that lot! Hence, I am trying to find out who else made like this. The yellow eared Dachsund 'might be' Pirelli
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My daughter collects glass animals, she has nearly 100!!
I have a few of the larger ones , including a rabbit with a walking stick which is Pirelli as I have seen it on Franks site, but i can't photograph it as the kids have used the camera batteries in the CD players and they are flat!
I love them as they really brighten the place up.
Barbara
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A good number of highly skilled lampworkers were/are employed making intricate laboratory apparatus in "Pyrex".
A few had/have a lucrative sideline making glass animals at home. They would all be more than capable of making any of the animals shown.
Adam D.
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Hi Barbara,
Are any of your daughters collection labelled? The main indicator of Pirelli seems to be that the eyes are three colours with white/pupil/iris. But not all :x Is your rabbit like the black and white one or the one of the possibly Pirelli page, I just got another that is closer to the Pirelli one but I do not think it is. Picture in 5 minutes.
Adam, they seem to have been made commercially in substantial quantities for gift trade etc. would you know if your colleagues were selling via a company or just as gifts. The glassworkers at Pirelli were recorded as Scientific glassmakers. Published material concentrates on moulded or American production of glass animals.
Ray, all I can find with your suggestion is glass jewellery.
The joys and frustrations of virgin territory!
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Some more.
http://tinypic.com/2d0un9 <---- Mod: Link dead
I doubt if any are Pirelli.
Rabbit is not exactly like the Pirelli one shown here
http://www.ysartglass.com/Pirelli/Images/Rabbit02bw.jpg The other one from website: http://www.ysartglass.com/Pirelli/Images/Rabbit03.jpg
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The town of Lauscha, near Dresden, is the largest producer of lampworked animals and figurines.
http://www.glaszentrum-lauscha.de/de/home.php
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Hi Frank,
It is like the black and white photo. Mine has a blue jacket and trousers, a red bowtie and buttons and is holding a yellow walking stick. The funniest thing is his flat legs !Quite the dandy
The only other one which Vicky has that is similar to the Pirelli glass animals you have on the site is the rabbit holding a carrot.
Once the batteries have recharged I'll photo them.
Barbara
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Frank,
Sorry, I don't know to what extent "home-made" animals were sold commercially, but I would be surprised if there weren't a lot. Your posting reminded me - their proper job title was, I think, Scientific Glassblowers. The top men shared highest-earners place in the factory with the top big-shop blowers (i.e. working at furnace type blowing, making up to 200 litreflasks).
I have a vague recollection that a couple of the lampworkers (let's stick to the common term) had left to set up their own business. I don't know how much of that was animals etc and how much jobbing scientific work for small labs. It must have been lucrative to have quit their original, highly paid jobs.
For the record, all of this would have been in the Sunderland area.
Adam D.
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I've got a home made glass animal! :D
It's a little lampwork 'Dragon' which my husband made in the kitchen!
I don't think it's got the right number of legs, or eyes, or that it looks much like a dragon (which he assured me it was!) but it was a real labour of lurve, and I treasure it :o ;) http://tinypic.com/2d73ev <--- Mod: Link dead
OK, OK, I'm sorry, I'll go! ::)
Leni ;D
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:D Leni, Nothing can beat a labour of lurve!
Adam, having worked in labs, the biggest flask I used was 5 litres! 200 sounds totally unwieldy! (Sorry, got 'flu, feeling rotten).
I have to confess a love of the volumetric flask shape, and have a few art glass bottles in that shape, of varying quality. (I keep them in the kitchen, my current "lab"). Shall post some pictures, sometime soon.
I had a 2litre flask size, in a lovely olivey green, I think it might have been Galaskruf, but my other half dropped a copper lobster bottle opener on it. Sigh :cry:
At an antiquey fair in Perth, a couple of years ago, I met David Smith, who had spent 23 years as head lampworker at Perthshire Paperweights, but following their closure, was trying to make ends meet, having opened his own workshop in Perth, making lovely little glass birds and animals, very detailed. I don't know what he's doing now, I still have his details .
The birds and animals were beautiful (but I have to confess, I was not taken with the stained agate plinths, just one of my no-no's)
Cheers, Sue.
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Some of the nicest lampwork I have seen (outside of a paperweight) is by David and Wendy Pryce-Jones of The Glassblobbery - http://www.glassblobbery.com David is the flame-worker and Wendy is a glass-stainer. The irridescent colours in their work are fantastic! :shock:
I have two pieces by them, but one is badly broken :cry: (cats :evil: ) and even the other, shown here: http://tinypic.com/2d7vjc <--- Mod: Link dead has had a reed broken off (cats again :roll: ) which I am waiting for a sunny day to glue.
Still beautiful in spite of the damage, IMHO ( see thread on chips, etc. :wink: )
Leni
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I like the name Glassblobbery. Reminds more of my recent laymens post on glassmaking using blobs :lol: Sadly, they do not accept cash payments over £10,000 :'(
A Pirelli Kanagaroo just sold on eBay with a retail price ticket of 17 bob about 1.20 in real money. Not much today but quite expensive in the 50's to 60's when it was sold. Presumably the lampworker would have received 20%-40% of that per piece so quite lucrative. By contrast Lausch's web shop offer most of their lampwork in the range o 5 - 20 a piece and style is not wildly different from Pirelli. The blobbery work is very elaborate by comparison and their price range is £7 - £65 (10-90).
I find it fascinating that so much energy is invested in this area by glassmakers and collectors but until now has been hardly mentioned in these forums. My original teasing thread title (time to come out) was designed to encourage people to admit to owning these and as so many responded I changed it to a more sedate title.
A lot of 50's lampwork on eBay is Japanese so it would seem to be quite a large global sub-industry... with the advantage of needing minimal equipment. The Russians and Chinese are also making a lot now.
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Sue - The 200 litre flask was part of industrial chemical plant, not for use in a lab!! The blower himself found it a bit unwieldy - rather a stagger to the mould!
Adam D.
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Lamp-work items also came from Czechoslovakia, particularly from the Zelezny Brod Glassworks, Jaroslav Brychta and Jan Cerny being two of the high-profile designers, and lamp-working was taught at the Industrial school there.
Allegedly, the "dachshund peeing on a lamp-post" figure, was a 3-dimensional irreverance toward T.G. Masaryk, first president of the Czechoslovakian Republic, and well-known dachshund owner.
Marcus
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Hi All,
here is my rabbit,
http://tinypic.com/2d98gl <--- Mod: Link dead
and also some more, I have no idea who made the grasshoppers, but the man I think is Czech and the dragon was bought as that was the year I was born in!
http://tinypic.com/2d98pv <--- Mod: Link dead
Barbara
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My only lampwork pieces are two sets of earrings made by a man in Brighton (I don't know his name. I do now: Bill Axel) who used to have a shop in (what my late ex-mother-in-law used to call) the top of the town. One is a pair of dark purple (almost black) cats which swing from one paw and which were a regular line for him. The other is a pair of snowmen which the said ex-MIL asked him to make specially for me, and he did. Both pairs attract considerable attention whenever I wear them! Not old, but date from c.1990-ish.
Oh, and I have a tiny lavender elephant my mother brought back from Italy in the 1980's... there was a mother elephant and three young but they were so tiny and suffered the ravages of time and moving house, etc. I think the mother is still intact but the babies lost ears and legs over the years. :( She watched them be made and then bought them for me.
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At an antiquey fair in Perth, a couple of years ago, I met David Smith, who had spent 23 years as head lampworker at Perthshire Paperweights, but following their closure, was trying to make ends meet, having opened his own workshop in Perth, making lovely little glass birds and animals, very detailed. I don't know what he's doing now
Probably DUNCAN Smith http://www.scotlandsglass.com/People/Duncsmith.htm <--- Mod: Link dead
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I've got loads gathering dust on my mantlepiece - they go for nothing, so I tend to keep them and give them to the children from time to time.
None of them have three colour eyes though :-(
On the subject, how can you tell Murano ones from Eastern European ones does anyone know? Is there a relatively easy way or is it just another area where you just sort of KNOW after handling loads of them?
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:oops: :oops: :oops:
Yup, Duncan Smith. David Smith is somebody else! Sorry, Duncan!
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has anyone seen lampworked animals from murano with stickers on? cause i've not
i've got a good collection of Pirelli animals now and as Frank said some do not have 3 coloured eyes and i think they came in 3 different sizes
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I once had a beautiful lampworked flamingo with a murano sticker on it.
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has anyone seen lampworked animals from murano with stickers on? cause i've not
Yes Ray: I have a few fish and a duck/grebe.