Topic: Favourite Pieces of Glass

[Frank]

Svazzo kicked off an interesting thread for the Murano forum and I thought it might be interesting to do the same here without the regional restriction.

This is not a competition and not about showing off the best in glass, after all a personal favourite could be a childhood jam jar.

You can show several pieces if you wish and please keep the size of images showing within the message to 250 pixels by 2500 pixels maximum. Larger pics should be put on a hostng service such as Tinypic and just the URL added here.

I will kick of with my favourite Ysart piece - The Vincent Ysart vase. The attachment to this piece is somewhat emotional as I bought it from the widow of Vincent Ysart who had made it especially for her.

 Click on the image for more views.

My favourite ink bottle

This is an unusual shape and it took me a very long time to track an example down.

I will add some of my other favourites later.

[Bernard C]

I agree with Frank.   That vase socked me one when I saw it and held it.   It is easily the most instantly recognisable one-off piece of glass I know, made for love, nothing else, and never repeated.   One strange feature of it is that it is a lot smaller than I had expected, like the surviving fragments of the Morrison tazza in Broadfield House (see Hajdamach).   If you are fortunate enough to see this vase you will never forget it — it is stunning.

Two rather ordinary pieces of glass are rather special to me.   One is the engraved cup which my brother Andrew won at the Midlands Classic Bike Show in 1996 for the best restoration of a special.   I was given this after his untimely death five years later, when he was killed by a Tesco lorry pulling out of a side turning on to the Chester Road without properly checking for oncoming traffic, leaving him with nowhere to go.   The other is a simple early blown Jobling Pyrex tumbler with a slightly flared rim in an elegant EPNS holder, which Janet's mother always used for her nightcap.

I think my favourite piece of glass in stock, which I would be rather distressed to sell, is my purple ribbon cloud 278 and holder.   This is by far the most spectacular and interesting example of cloud glass I have ever seen, and, with Adam's invaluable assistance (although not necessarily his wholehearted agreement), enabled me to work out most of how and why ribbon cloud glass was made.   I use the term ribbon cloud with some hesitation, as to my knowledge it is not yet proven that Davidson used the term cloud glass for it.

What is interesting is that the process enabled Davidson's glassmakers to make just one at any time, unlike conventional cloud glass where the process favoured making a run of glass in that cloud colour combination.   Unfortunately the problem of how the spiral of amethyst glass was made is still unresolved.   Three possibilities are from rod, trailing a spiral on the marver, and moulding using a pincer-type tool (compare Hajdamach plate 284 and the text immediately below).

This 278 made me much more interested in cloud glass generally.   Subsequently I have recognised two 279s made with two distinctive gathers;  a clear first one followed by a cloud second.   Also I found an Ora 279 made from amber cloud, not the more usual purple cloud, and now I always look closely at Ora to see if it is possible to determine which colour was used as the base.   This also raises the possibility that some (or all) examples of tortoiseshell are just Ora with the paint stripped off.

I like and am fascinated by puzzles.   Bernard C.  

[Frank]

This has proven more difficult than I expected, I have been looking at all of my glass and trying to pick another favourite  :?  it i almost impossible as lots of them have that category. I have had to sel a lot of glass in the past two years and that had the benefit of weeding out all of my 'less than favourites' Now I am left with favourites....

However, I have one group that is definitely a big favourite and that is my Lindean Mill graal pieces

Click on images: LINK

[Anonymous]

I think my favourite piece of glass in stock, which I would be rather distressed to sell, is my purple ribbon cloud 278 and holder.   This is by far the most spectacular and interesting example of cloud glass I have ever seen, and, with Adam's invaluable assistance (although not necessarily his wholehearted agreement), enabled me to work out most of how and why ribbon cloud glass was made.   I use the term ribbon cloud with some hesitation, as to my knowledge it is not yet proven that Davidson used the term cloud glass for it.
.   Bernard C.  

Good morning Bernard

Do you have a photograph of the 278 as I would be interested to see it.
I have the same vase in blue and with, I am assuming from your description,  the same ribbon trailing. I have noticed with other pieces of cloud glass that the "pattern" ( as it is random or perhaps not ) can be quite distinctive depending upon the shape of the piece. With the latter this may probably be nothing more than physics and the dynamics involved in the process... Do you have a reasonably short explanation from Adam regarding the ribbon trailing that you could post here??

regards


Gareth


Morgan48

[glasswizard]

This really gives one pause to reflect on what makes something a favorite. That got me to thinking, what piece have I had for a long time and still would not give up. Then it came to me. http://tinypic.com/5akx93              This is an Orient and Flume vase 9.5 inches tall. I saw it in a jewelry store and must admit, drooled everytime I laid eyes on it. One day the store had a large sale and even though on sale, still rather expensive, but being in the right place, right time and a certain amount of lust I knew I must have it. It still captivates me and if left with just one piece, this would probably be it. Terry

[Anne E.B.]

These are my favourite pieces of glass, not necessarily the most valuable.  They were all bought from the same seller at a car boot sale for about £3 to £4 each a couple of years ago.  They had been in the seller's family since the sixties. I regret not buying a large 5th vase which was a cylinder shape, because I was loaded up a bit like a pack horse and the shape didn't excite me quite as much.   Two of them still have their original gold foil label " Made in Italy".  I just love the shape and colour.  I presume they were all made by the same glass company as they are identical in colour - and all approx. 12/13" high.  I particularly like the bottle shape vase which reminds me of Holmegaard pieces.  I don't know who the maker actually was, so if anyone knows...
Best wishes - Anne.

[Max]

Bernard said: This 278 made me much more interested in cloud glass generally. Subsequently I have recognised two 279s made with two distinctive gathers; a clear first one followed by a cloud second. Also I found an Ora 279 made from amber cloud

   That could be Martian language for all the sense it makes to me.  

Bernard? Could you possibly put a photo of at least the alluring sounding ribbon cloud glass on here?  I've never really liked cloud glass, but this 'individual' ribbon cloud pieces sound like they might be interesting!        

[Robert Hadley]

Hi Frank,

I thought that I would join this game.  What I find is that my favourite piece tends to change over time.  At the moment I like my most recent addition to my collection of Schneider-Le Verre Francais

http://www.schneiderglass.com/gallery/items/?i=227

My favourite in the gallery would be

http://www.schneiderglass.com/gallery/items/?i=156

Robert
www.schneiderglass.com

[Leni]

my favourite piece tends to change over time.  At the moment I like my most recent addition to my collection

Me too!   :shock:  So I suppose one of my favourites at the moment is my Layton 'Spirale' vase.  http://tinypic.com/5bem3a

However, I still think my all-time favourite has to be my Clichy paperweight    http://tinypic.com/5bel5i  I could sit and look at it through a magnifier for hours at a time  :roll:  

Talk about extremes!   :lol:  :roll:  :wink:

Leni

[butchiedog]

My favorite isn't anything all that special, but a very good friend of mine does lamp work and other glass crafts. She often buys junky glass at garage sales and makes something else out of it. One of her specialties is making miniature glass dishes, which she sells to stores who sell doll houses and supplies for that hobby.

She purchased a broken piece of Fenton Burmese glass and somehow made a number of those miniature items from that.

This is a piece she gave me.

http://tinypic.com/5bemfs

Mike