Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: Gary on December 13, 2012, 05:57:21 PM
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Seen this on ebay, I don't believe (IMHO) that it is a Monart piece. Does anyone have an idea of the maker.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Extremely-Rare-Art-Deco-Bowl-Monart-Glass-John-Moncrieff-LTD-Scotland-30s-/170955731683?pt=UK_Art_Glass&hash=item27cdc172e3
Gary
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Not really my area, although my first thoughts were WMF Ikora...
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I don't think the colour has come out well in their pics - if the last two (before the chip pics) are better representative of it, then I reckon it is Monart.
There's a MASSIVE cylinder vase in this colourway in Perth Museum - just about my favourite bit of Monart.
However, this bit up for auction has a horrendous price on it - and it's damaged.
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Price is a bit steep although it is stunning and the chip is not a problem. Very nice. Imagine how it would change if it had been twisted after the dip mould as was normally done.
Must have gone to Germany in the days when people use to say about Monart "What is this..." reply "WMF Ikora".
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If this a Monart piece what catalogue shape would it be.
The link below shows a WMF Ikora bowl with the same colours as the bowl on ebay.
http://www.schuerenberg.com/en/gallery/glass/arde/wmf/data/00505/index.html
Gary
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As Sue said, the eBay photos appear to show conflicting colours. If I was interested in that item, I would make sure that I have seen a fresh set of photos, preferably taken in daylight.
As it stands, Gary's link to the WMF bowl does tie in well with the colours in some of the eBay images. But in the eBay images that show a red, rather than orange, colour, there appears to be a strong similarity with the red in one of my Salvador Ysart Inkwells which may well be Ysart Brothers, "Vasart" but perhaps using an original Monart red.
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If it is Monart, (which I believe it is - but I'm not "au fait" with the catalogues, Gary - I just look at the glass.)
the colours should be much more muted than in the pics - more like the 2 photos towards the end.
It's not a bright, "in-your-face" cobalt blue - it's paler and subtle. It's not any bright red or orange either, but a slightly yellowy ambery, burnt orange. I do think there is an example on Scotland's glass - I'll have a browse.
Nearest is 70a. The blue is the correct shade - but the "green" isn't. It's definitely a palish burnt orange.
Do you know the piece I'm talking about Gary? It's MASSIVE - and just a simple straight cylinder shape - non catalogue.
It's years since I've seen it, my memory might be playing tricks on me, it would have been perhaps, 5-6 inches in diameter and well over a foot tall - maybe as much as 18-20". Nearly an umbrella stand!
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Shape is based on FH IG ish. Orange looks mostly fine except where it looks too red in later images. Blue is fine too. Doubt it is pre-war colours though. The red (as it appears in photos) reminds me of some Vasart colours.
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Shape is based on FH IG ish.
I take it you mean the shape of the bowl is not in the Monart catalogue. When you say based on the Monart shapes FH and IG the only thing that they have in common is the shaped foot, both FH and IG shapes have a folded rim the bowl on ebay does not.
The third image is the shape IG from my collection,I have not got a FH shape in my collection so I can't post an image.
I don't think the colour has come out well in their pics - if the last two (before the chip pics) are better representative of it, then I reckon it is Monart.
There's a MASSIVE cylinder vase in this colourway in Perth Museum - just about my favourite bit of Monart.
However, this bit up for auction has a horrendous price on it - and it's damaged.
On my last visit to Perth museum I photographed every piece of Monart the museum have in their reserve collection apart from a few Y shape pin dishes.
The only cylinder vase they have is the one shown below. which just over 12 inches tall and the colours are blue, green and citron with bubble inclusions. The first image is without a flash the second image is with a flash.
Both Frank and chopin liszt seem to have differing views on the true colouring of the bowl so meantime we must go with the vendor description ie blue and orange. I intend to email the vendor re the provenance and if he believes his images are a true represention of the colours of his bowl.
Gary
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It took us about 4 visits to see the reserve collection, Gary - Fiona only brought out about 16 pieces each visit.
It was also a good number of years ago, and photographs don't always do glass justice (!!!!!), but that cylinder you've shown does not match the cylinder in my memory!
The one in my memory (which is prone to flights of fancy - as is everybody's) was straight - no flare at the top, no wide base. It was very, very bubbly, it was like 70a, but burnt orange instead of green. I'm fairly sure it was blue at the bottom and the warm burnt orange at the top.
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The link below shows a WMF Ikora bowl with the similar type finish ie orange bottom with orange stripes to top of bowl through the top colour (the top colour is different) with bubble inclusion throughout.
As an aside the vendor has dropped the price.
I have emailed the vendor re colours and provenance
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Fine-German-WMF-Ikora-glass-bowl-c1930s-/330835986056?pt=UK_Art_Glass&hash=item4d075c8688
Gary
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The stripes are very different though - those are great thick stripes - as is usually found on WMF. One the piece in question, they are remarkable by being so thin and delicate. Thanks for contacting the seller about the colours Gary!
Tthis is a bit of a mystery.
I'm still fairly sure the colours are wrong in the pics and that it is Monart - but I'm not going to threaten to eat any of my hats. I need them in this weather!
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Below is the message I sent to the vendor and the vendors reply.
Could you tell me if the images shown are true representations of the colours ie blue and orange, as some of the images it appears to be some red on the foot of the bowl.
You say this is a Monart bowl, I would like to ask what provenance do you have that could prove this is a Monart bowl.
Regards
Good evening,
this is a right orange colour.
Main proof is my experienced nose and much different glasses of Monart on the different sides on Internet. Unfortunately, the bowl is unmarked.
Thanks.
Regards.
Mod:<seller's named removed as a precaution>
Gary
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The stripes are very different though - those are great thick stripes - as is usually found on WMF. One the piece in question, they are remarkable by being so thin and delicate.
Below are links to some WMF Ikora bowls with varying degrees of thickness of stripes.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fine-German-WMF-Ikora-glass-bowl-c1930s-/330836071403?pt=UK_Art_Glass&hash=item4d075dd3eb
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fine-and-Large-German-WMF-Ikora-glass-bowl-c1930s-/330835990547?pt=UK_Art_Glass&hash=item4d075c9813
http://shop.strato.de/epages/61231908.sf/de_DE/?ObjectPath=/Shops/61231908/Products/7
I have no knowledge on what is the usual size of stripes in WMF Ikora glass, but as you can see Sue they did use stripes of varying sizes.
Gary
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:)
Some great sleuthing on WMF, Gary - thanks very much! You've turned up with some quite unusual pieces there.
The seller's answer isn't much use, is it? It was mostly the blue I was really concerned about. ::)
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:)
Some great sleuthing on WMF, Gary - thanks very much! You've turned up with some quite unusual pieces there.
The seller's answer isn't much use, is it? It was mostly the blue I was really concerned about. ::)
You are correct Sue the vendors reply was not very informative, especially re the provenance, quote from vendor "Main proof is my experienced nose and much different glasses of Monart on the different sides on Internet".
I looked up his ebay profile and in the last 5 years he has not sold any Monart or in fact very little glass of any type, though he has sold a few WMF Ikora pieces.
Since I have been looking thru WMF Ikora I have been much impressed with this type of glass and hope to add a piece to my glass collection sometime in near future.
Gary
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Well, as a Monart collector, you do need an example of WMF - and a nice bit of Schnieder too.
All great glass artists from the same sort of period, creating the fashions of the day.
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herrrhummm, can you just stick to Monart and Studio Glass you two...leaving the lovely 1930's other bits for me ;D
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The vendor has dropped the B.I.N price once more.
herrrhummm, can you just stick to Monart and Studio Glass you two...leaving the lovely 1930's other bits for me ;D
Only if you leave the Monart for me ;)
Gary
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;D why of course.
m
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OK, I guess it might be worth adding my two'penny worth.
In my experience bowls like the one in Gary's question have not turned out to be Monart.
I would say that using eBay for 'sleuthing' is very much like asking the blind to take the lead :o ??? How do you know whether the seller knows their stuff? Some do, many do not.....so how then do you know you'er getting the correct attribution?
I my lmited experience of bowls like this that I've either owned, or handled, over the years I cannot remember one that turned out to be Monart. They fall into two categories, the light weight and the heavy(ier).
The lightweight have a multitude of irregular bubbles that bulge through the surface, which is not so shiney, perhaps even toward the matt with an unpolished pontil mark. Conversely, the heavier ones have a shiney surface and a polished pontil mark; the body is thicker walled, so the bubbles do not bulge to the surface in the same way. These pieces also tend to have a ridged base, sometimes even a cylindrical base with several ridges before it meets the bowl.
The bowl in question is the latter.
Neither bowls have a definitive attribution. Although, on occasion, they have been WMF, others have not been proven to be so.
I own a very large vase and a wavy bowl that I have never been able to give a positive makers name to. Therefore, my vote would be NOT Monart, and not necessarily WMF.
Nigel
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http://www.ebay.com/itm/SEHR-SELTENE-KLEINE-WMF-IKORA-GLAS-VASE-BLAU-PINK-/160731244321?pt=Glas_Kristall&hash=item256c542721
this vase is advertised as rare wmf. The blue looks very similar.
if it is definitely WMF then perhaps the bowl is also? I haven't time to go through the WMF book at the moment but will try and do so tomorrow.
m
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This was also a rare WMF vase that I sold a couple of years ago of similar colours.
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,30527.0.html
Roy
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???
That's silver chloride yellows with teals, mhcolfclub, not cobalt blue and orange... and the colurway is not what I'd classify as rare (but then, that's a word I avoid, preferring "scarce") - I've seen several lamps in it. I do love it, but just ain't paying WMF prices. ;D
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but the shape and the colours (teal and silver chlorides) may be rare for WMF Sue :)
I'll go through the book later and see what I can see regarding the OP item and the colours.
I'm not very sure about WMF scarcity items at all...I don't see enough or know anything about the colour availability (which I think affects scarcity??) or the Unica items,
but I'll see if there might be a match in the book for this blue and orange.
I'm hopeful I've just bought an amethyst WMF vase but still waiting to hear on it ::)
m
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I was following the original thread on mr golfclub's piece, ff, given my propensity for teal with silver chloride effects!
I have seen a fair few bits in this colourway since - I originally thoughtMr. Golfclub's bit might be a scarce bit of Mdina!
(with the really scarce bits, you have no idea what shape or form they might be in - you simply have to study the glass and the techniques and colours - which can be difficult with images only!)
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Yes, there are some amazing Unica pieces in the book - I would never have guessed they were WMF from seeing them without information. I hadn't realised about the silver chlorides and teal Sue, I must keep an eye out. Unfortunately most WMF that I seem to like is out of my price range :-X
m
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I did make a rather spectacular WMF purchase myself recently. On a very low BIN, everybody was ignoring it because it was in Eire and the postage was high.
However, when you added theBIN and the postage together - it was still a *remarkable* bargain.
It was completely beyond me why nobody else snapped it up. ???
Still, my gain! 8) And the seller was a lovely person who posted it in the north for me, so saving my postage costs anyway - and it was the best wrapped piece I've ever recieved. The massive box even had a proper carrying handle attached firmly to it.
The whiteish/silvery crackle effect in it is all elongated bubbles - not the usual thing at all, and it's uranium too!
Will have to post pics sometime. I don't think it's a particularly scarce design - but the elongated, ariel-like bubbles are a feature I've not seen before.
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http://www.ebay.com/itm/Extremely-Rare-Art-Deco-Bowl-Monart-Glass-John-Moncrieff-LTD-Scotland-30s-/170971129111?pt=UK_Art_Glass&hash=item27ceac6517
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Paul, I think Gary started a thread on this very item a few days ago...I'll try and find a link for you.
m
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Thank you.
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Below is the link to previous thread about the bowl. IMHO the bowl is not Monart.
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,50649.0.html
Gary
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thanks Gary :) I got distracted Paul and completely forgot about the thread ::)
m
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In my opinion, the *glass* itself is wrong for Monart. Ysart glass is very tinny, with a low lead content, and a dull ring tone when struck. This glass has a high lead content, and normal strike tone. Additionally, the pontil mark is all wrong for Monart, as it is completely ground out and concave. However, although the lead content is right for WMF, and the pontil could be right for WMF, the pontil would be atypical for WMF, as theirs are rarely actually ground extensively beyond level with the base (although this is not an iron fast rule); what's specifically strange about the pontils on these is that they are sort of *doubly* ground, with one lower convex recession inside another larger (wider) one, which WMF did not do - so I'm still not 100% certain that it is WMF. Additionally, the stripe pattern, the bubbles, and the base are all a little off for WMF (note that I say "a little"). I think this is either unusual WMF or something else, but not Monart, and lean towards the "something else" direction, leaving it "unknown" in my mind. Not certain though. Does anyone have any ideas on what else it could be besides WMF other than Monart? Czech perhaps? A pre-Czechoslovakia Bohemian maker? Wierd Leerdam? Something obscure from Fance? What about all the obscure stuff Webb & contemporaries made in the UK in the 20's & 30's? Thanks everyone for their input.
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the only thing I've been able to think of is possibly something like La Rochere in France.
They made some nice coloured glass, and possibly in a similar way, but to my eye it always looks slightly 'newer' than the 20s/30s glass in this vein. This bowl also does. Something about the bubbly way the bubbles are.
It also reminds me very slightly of the Czech? Cellophane glass somehow. The contrast of two colours or something, but not sure what.
It will probably turn out to be a very rare piece of WMF or something lol :)
m
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what's specifically strange about the pontils on these is that they are sort of *doubly* ground, with one lower convex recession inside another larger (wider) one, which WMF did not do
This piece of WMF has a double ground pontil mark
http://lustrousstone.co.uk/cpg/displayimage.php?pid=200
http://lustrousstone.co.uk/cpg/displayimage.php?pid=198
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Additionally, the pontil mark is all wrong for Monart, as it is completely ground out and concave.
Monart did use that type of finish on the base, I have 6 ZA bowls, 1 MF (with full Monart label) and a XG powder bowl, (shown below) which all have concave pontil finish.
Below are letters from an American Monart collector and B Reid the dispatch clerkess at Moncrieffs glassworks explaining why that type of finish was used.
These letters are part of the Perth museum Monart archives.
Gary
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Can we take it you've had your mitts on this actual piece, then Paul? (given you say it feels heavy and sounds right)
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Thank you, folks, for your replies and images. I have had my mitts on 4 bowls like this over the years. In further discussing the peculiar pontil mark on the bowl, let me use Gary's photo of the green Ysart ietm as a point of departure: on that piece, the first level of grinding, if I'm interpreting it correctly, is the flat part of the base, upon which the piece sits; the second level of grinding is then the concave grinding out of the actual mark left behind by the pontil rod when the piece was removed from the rod. What I'm saying about the blue and red bowl in question, using the green Ysart piece as an anology, is that it then , by comparison, has 3 levels of grinding: one to make the bowl's base flat and level, to sit on; a second one, to concavely grind out the actual pontil rod mark created by the removal of the rod; and then a third concave grinding of the larger circular concave pontil mark, almost like a mini pontil mark within the larger pontil mark. This inner mini second pontil mark is quite distinct from the outer one. The end result is that the thickness of the glass between the top of the innermost grinding of the pontil and the bottom of the inside of the bowl is rather thin for a bowl of this mass. Incidentally, the base of the bowl is not ground as perfectly flat as the Ysart piece shown; in other words, there is a ring of unground glass between the flat-ground edge of the base upon which is sits and the start of the double ground pontil. This is why I referred to the pontil as double ground in my original description; I was not including the grinding of the base for flatness as a level of pontil grinding, as the pontil mark is seperate from the grinding of the edge of the base. I believe both the Ysart piece and the WMF piece shown above have only edge or base grinding for flatness and then the actual pontil ground out, for a total of only two levels of grinding. It is also interesting to note that on the blue / red bowl, the pontil area actually pushes up a little into the bottom of the bowl, making the bottom of the bowl, as viewed from the top (ie the inside) slightly convex. I have never seen or heard of either an Ysart or WMF bowl having a situation like this. One other interesting detail: the bowl, when viewed from side to side (as opposed to merely top-down or from bottom up) actually slants / slopes quite dramatically from left to right, ie it is not level, noticeably. Although I once saw a Vasart vase that leaned a bit, it was minimal, and I have never, ever seen a WMF piece that was "off" in any way. The last bit of info that I can provide is that the outside edge of the bowl is actually quite thin, almost fragile, really, something I've never seen in a WMF piece at all, and something which the Ysarts kept to a safe minimum in any piece of their glass I've ever encountered. These are all the details and observations I have. Thank you, everyone, for your continued interest.
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I can't comment on either makers finish as I have only a few pieces from each of them, but I have to agree I can't see a double ground pontil mark on either Gary's piece or Christine's.
I see a flat ground and polished base with a polished pontil mark on both of them.
m
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Paul, can you please put me out of my misery about the accuracy of the colours, if you know these beasts personally?
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The blue is spot-on as shown in the current ebay listing. The red here is perhaps a little light, or orangey, but is quite close; it could just be this example, though. The others I've seen have been a little darker red, less orangey, but not much. Also, in some others I've seen, the stripes have been pretty difficult to determine, very faint. I was just looking at the pontil photos on the piece currently listed on ebay, and noticed that the center pontil mark appears to have only one grind, and not a smaller grind inside a larger one. That would make this the first single grind I've seen. But, it looks like the base pushes upwards, as with the others I've seen. Maybe someday someone will come along with one with a label or signature, and put it to rest.
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oddly enough the way that foot is finished at the edge somehow reminds me yet again of my amber crackle bowl with green stripes. But my amber bowl is very heavy for size and does not ring. Also, does that bowl have a ridged ring sandwiched between the bowl and the foot?
m
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There is no ring between the bowl and the base of the bowl, the base is just a direct extension of the bowl. I wonder if the foot / base may have been molded in some way? Not sure. Also, you can see quite clearly in the photos for the current listing that the bottom of the inside / top of the bowl comes upwards in a convex manner.