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Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: agincourt17 on June 30, 2012, 06:18:50 PM

Title: G.V. de Luca and the French Flint Glass Bottle Company, London.
Post by: agincourt17 on June 30, 2012, 06:18:50 PM
I’ve just acquired this pressed glass celery vase. Diamond registration mark inside the bowl for 2 February 1876 (Parcel 1), registered to G.V. de Luca, London (RD 290855-7).  The colour is a very pale amethyst or lilac (not sure if this was the original colour or simply an ageing colour change), and the relief decoration on the bowl exterior is very ornate.

Giuseppe Vincenzo de Luca seems to have carried on business in the City as ‘Glass Merchants and Manufacturers’ Agents under the style of ‘The French Flint Glass Bottle Company’, and the decoration of the celery vase is certainly in the Continental (rather than British) taste, so I suppose it may well have been manufactured in France for import and retail in Britain.  There were 2 other registrations to de Luca on April 3 1875, and another on December 15 1879.

A partnership between de Luca and Stafford Hill trading at 6 & 7 Long Lane, Aldersgate Street, City of London) was dissolved on 2 December 1900, and de Luca presumably carried on the business as he is named as Managing Director of the Limited Company in a notice in the London Gazette following his death on 1 December 1918. A London Street Directory of 1921 cites The French Glass and Bottle Co Ltd as trading from 19 & 20 Smithfield (West), EC1.

Does anyone else have examples of de Luca’s registered designs?
Title: Re: G.V. de Luca and the French Flint Glass Bottle Company, London.
Post by: agincourt17 on June 30, 2012, 09:25:38 PM
 I see that there is a G.V. de Luca registered design illustrated in plate 315 on page 348 of Charles Hajdamach’s ‘British Glass 1800-1914’. The design was registered on 13 October 1877 (Parcel 12), RD 315269, and is for a clear glass pomade jar in the shape of Cleopatra’s Needle. (Many souvenirs of Cleopatra’s Needle were made in 1877, the date when the obelisk was to arrive in London from Egypt and be erected on the embankment. In the event, following an accident aboard the ship carrying the obelisk it sank in the Thames and was not erected until September 1878). Hajdamach remarks that the company responsible for pressing the de Luca pomade jar had still not been traced.
Title: Re: G.V. de Luca and the French Flint Glass Bottle Company, London.
Post by: numbersandlozenges on August 14, 2012, 03:45:01 PM
Hi.

I've had two of these Celerys for quite some time. Alas I've never been able to comprehend the lozenge. I thought you had cracked it when I found the matching pictures.
But the three registrations for that date are not for celerys, they are for pomades. Thus, although I want to believe they are De Luca, I remain unconvinced. The 2, and the v on the lozenge seem OK, but the other two, well ??. I have nothing else remotely like them, and they don't look like anything from the major players. The only other lozenge that fits with 2, v, is 2,v,B,3 by Seago & Co on 02/10/1876, no. 303996, but I have no idea if that is for a celery.

Nos & Loz
Title: Re: G.V. de Luca and the French Flint Glass Bottle Company, London.
Post by: Lustrousstone on August 14, 2012, 06:18:52 PM
Could it not be for the pattern rather than the shape?