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Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Unresolved Glass Queries => Topic started by: Bernard C on November 05, 2004, 05:27:49 AM

Title: Venetian style small tazza - please help with attribution
Post by: Bernard C on November 05, 2004, 05:27:49 AM
Hi everyone.

I broke all my own rules buying this little gem;  I couldn't help it - it is one of the most beautifully made items I have seen.

(http://www.bernard.cavalot.btinternet.co.uk/e4b22a/sm_main_image.jpg) (http://www.bernard.cavalot.btinternet.co.uk/e4b22a/xl_main_image.jpg)

Facts:
Sourced from an English Midlands general dealer, so more than likely originally retailed in the UK
h. exactly 3" (76mm)
d. 4 3/4" (122mm)
base d. exactly 2 3/4" (70mm)
weight 6 3/8oz (182g)
3 piece construction, no pontil mark, central thin shear mark on base of stem, no curly bubbles at the join of the bowl to the stem.
Virtually no wear to the base - it was either made yesterday or it has spent its life in a display cabinet or packed away
Neat opaque white tape to the rim with no sign of a starting point.

Any ideas on maker, country, date, etc?

Thanks for looking, Bernard C.  8)
Title: I broke all my own rules
Post by: Sklounion on November 05, 2004, 07:26:28 AM
Tut tut, but entirely understandable......... :lol:
Title: Venetian style small tazza - please help with attribution
Post by: Frank on November 05, 2004, 08:12:57 AM
Reminds me of a Graystan beaker I once had. Shows here  (http://www.ysartglass.com/Otherglass/Graystan.htm) I came across a better picture recently that I will scan in when I get the chance.

Must admit, having looked at my pic again it is unclear why I made the connection.
Title: Venetian style small tazza - please help with attribution
Post by: Frank on November 05, 2004, 09:04:41 AM
I made the connection from the foot shape, but not as on on my beaker, see Item 91 in Between the Wars. Still a vague possibility. Lots of GS was not signed.
Title: Venetian style small tazza - please help with attribution
Post by: Bernard C on November 05, 2004, 09:17:17 AM
Thanks, Marcus & Frank,

I understand your views, Frank, I had them myself.   The whole stem construction could easily be Walsh, GS, or any of the classier Stourbridge factories.

The bowl is very delicate, though probably not light enough for early C20 Venetian.

You can see why I am baffled.

Bernard C.  8)

ps - I forgot to tell viewers to click on the thumbnail image!   Apologies for the fuzziness of the main image, it was right on my camera's boundary between close-up and standard photography.
Title: Venetian style small tazza - please help with attribution
Post by: Bernard C on November 08, 2004, 08:08:20 AM
Hi, everyone:

I took this little tazza with me to the glass fair yesterday, and showed it to Philip Petrides (great-glass) and several other dealers.

Concensus was:

1. I should not have bought it - the public don't buy quality, they only buy names.

2. Not GS, Walsh or Sowerby.

3. Possibly Stourbridge or, perhaps, German.

4. Probably early C20.

Philip and one other dealer had seen one or two from the same stable before, but had left well alone.

Hmmm.   I might try it on eBay.   There must be a few collectors out there who recognise quality.

Bernard C. 8)
Title: Tazza
Post by: Anonymous on November 08, 2004, 07:42:38 PM
What a lovely piece. The milk glass rim really accentuates the green of the glass. I have seen a similar item about two years ago here in Iowa. The milk glass treatment as a rim is not something you see often. In the past 15 years of collecting I have seen but the one piece.
Title: Tazza
Post by: Sklounion on November 08, 2004, 08:08:09 PM
Thanks Bernard.
Is the concensus right?
Should you have bought it? If you are only buying for re-sale, then the concensus is probably wrong.
2,3,4, concensus is probably right, however, the assumption that the public don't appreciate quality, only names, is the surest way of alienating the sellers from the public.

One question, do you personally like it? If so, consider that it only takes one other person who likes it, connoisseur or not, to potentially leave you in pocket. If you don't like it, few people will.
For me, it remains a very nice piece of work........
Title: Venetian style small tazza - please help with attribution
Post by: Bernard C on November 09, 2004, 07:05:22 AM
Guest from Iowa,

Thanks for your comments.   It is interesting to note that examples of good quality glass keep emerging from all over the world.   You can't hold a good design down!   I have been rather surprised over the last few years at how much top quality Walsh has been found in the USA.   Another surprise was a fine Nazeing bowl, uniquely acid-badged "ENGLAND" for the USA market, which came up on eBay some two years ago, proving that it was made for export to your country.

Marcus,

My first point above was not intended as criticism of the collecting public.   It arose from resententful discussion at Sunday's fair amongst honest dealers about a small but significant minority of dealers who persist in knowingly misattributing or misdescribing a proportion of their stock.   That is unfair to the public, many of whom have to take such labelling on trust, and is unfair competition to honest dealers who provide attributions, who invest time and money by studying books and websites and by visiting exhibitions and museums, and also unfair to those who do not provide any attributions at all, just price labels.   Often I point out to potential customers that no dealer will be afraid of a second opinion, but it is surprising how rarely members of the public take up this option.   That is all.

Bernard C.
Title: Venetian style small tazza - please help with attribution
Post by: Frank on November 09, 2004, 09:55:02 AM
Quote from: "Bernard C"
...minority of dealers who persist in knowingly misattributing or misdescribing a proportion of their stock.   That is unfair to the public, many of whom have to take such labelling on trust, and is unfair competition to honest dealers who provide attributions, who invest time and money by studying books and websites and by visiting exhibitions and museums, and also unfair to those who do not provide any attributions at all, just price labels.   Often I point out to potential customers that no dealer will be afraid of a second opinion...


Surely if they are knowingly doing this and at a respectable fair, then a complaint to the organisers is appropriate. Membership of an association with a clear code of practise, clearly displayed by member sellers, is one way to compensate for this. LAPADA as one example. Particularly with on-line selling there should be a means of checking a sellers credentials. Of course, only widespread adoption and good publicity are needed to make it effective. There is always a place for the general dealer who sells at a profitable price but without in depth knowledge, but specialised dealers should pay attention to external signs of 'professionalism'.

I have suggested this in the past but not one dealer commented and there is at least one such organisation for glass and ceramics dealer that is web based.

One thing is certain, inaction conserves the status quo, moaning achieves nothing or has a negative effect.

The downside of such a membership being that some people will assume that the 'professionalism' means higher prices and head for the 'cheap' stall/store. Good luck to them.

In my experience as a dealer (retired 10 years) for over 20 years is that the collecting public DO appreciate the dealer that offers well researched information and will pay the higher prices that come with that. I had a policy, when I sold Monart, of always offering to buy a piece back from the collector for more than they paid for it and some pieces passed through my hands 3 or 4 times as a result of that policy. For example Ysart Glass Plates 40 sold 3 times and Plate 55 four times. Of course I was charging very high prices and was the top of that market at the time and prices rose 50-100% per year.

As a collector, I now buy mostly via the Internet and often question the seller about provenance etc. The response I got has an impact on how much I am prepared to pay some times - it has also lead to my leaving a piece I might otherwise have bought. You can be certain, Bernard, if I was collecting the type of glass you sell - I would be a regular customer of yours. On eBay you operate to a standard that I wish more would adopt.
Title: I've been thinking
Post by: Bernard C on November 18, 2004, 01:52:40 PM
Back to my little tazza or compote.

At Leeds on Sunday I had a long conversation with an established and knowledgeable Whitefriars collector about my tazza, which I had on display.

We spent some time comparing it to a 3-piece construction Walsh Vesta Venetian vase, a late example dating from about 1920 (Vesta Venetian was launched in 1907, although that could have been just when Walsh decided to make it a formal named product line).

Although the tazza has a large, slightly flattened ball knop, and the vase has a merese or bladed knop, the two stems are remarkably similar in both technique and proportion, and could have been made by the same man.

It is, of course, most unlikely that this is the case, although the green is a close match to contemporary Walsh green, and Walsh were certainly making a similar opaque white.

So what could be an explanation.    Perhaps what matters is not the individual glassmaker, but how he was trained.    As far as I am aware all the Stourbridge group of glassworks (including Walsh and possibly Whitefriars) apprentices were trained at either the Wordsley or Stourbridge Schools of Art.   What we could have been examining was the style of the principal glassmaking tutor at one of these two colleges.

Compare with Jackson in 20th Century Factory Glass on Michael Harris and Mdina:
Quote
The reason for choosing Malta for their enterprise was that there was no tradition of glassmaking on the island: Harris preferred to train apprentices from scratch so that they would be free from bad habits and preconceptions.

So Michael Harris was convinced that techniques learned during apprenticeship would be difficult to change.

Therefore it seems to me that, on the balance of probability, this little tazza or compote is most likely to be a Stourbridge production, using the term in its wider sense to include the two geographically distant glassworks.

I am also grateful to an experienced American dealer, whose immediate reaction to the photograph was that it is English.

Has anyone any further views on this, as I plan to list it on eBay in the near future.

Bernard C.  8)
Title: Venetian style small tazza - please help with attribution
Post by: Bernard C on December 03, 2004, 08:38:27 AM
Hi everyone.

Yet another complete turnaround in attribution.

I showed this tazza/comport/compote to Roger Dodsworth and the team at Broadfield House yesterday.

Roger appreciated my points about construction technique, and agreed that stylistically 1920 plus or minus a decade or so looks right, but pointed out that the glass itself is wrong for an English manufacturer.    There is no lead in it.

He prefers a mainland European attribution.  I am now going along with that.   I don't hold out much hope of anything better.

Bernard C.  8)