Topic: Wedgwood Glass Vase, unusual mark

[BJB]

From the same source as the Iittala glasses came this lovely purple vase. It is 10" tall and has the pontil ground out.
On the edge of this is an acid etched portland vase and Wedgwood England.

But I can't find any record of this mark or if it was used for "special" glassware.

Can anyone help me? :?

Barbara

Mod: Pics unrecoverable

[Sklounion]

Barbara,
a standard mark for Wedgwood, factory at Kings Lynn, until they became cheap-skates and started using peel-able plastic labelling.
Looks like one of the Rustic Range vases, designed by Stennett-Willson.
Anyone throw up a date for production????
Regards,
Marcus

[BJB]

Hi Marcus,

The glass is of good quality and cased, very much a cut above the norm for Wedgwood, even the glass animals are a bit naff

I just love the colour, being a Febuary girl amethyst is soooooo me :lol:

Barbara

[Sklounion]

Barbara:

very much a cut above the norm for Wedgwood,

No, I'd argue this is a piece from an era, where Stennett-Willson, was still in charge, and absolutely of a design quality consistent with a designer who knew his material. Wedgwood is a distraction. S-W's quality control was good, and you have to assume that until 1979, when he left, Wedgwood's was also. After that.......

glass animals are a bit naff

But these were not designed by Stennett-Willson, but by a ceramics designer, albeit from a very distinguished english ceramics family, Richard Midwinter.

What you have is a piece by arguably one of the giants of modern English industrial glass design. If Gog is S-W, then Magog is Baxter.

Regards,

Marcus

[nigel benson]

Hi Marcus,

I'd agree with almost everythng you've said about this piece by S-W, except my understanding is that the 'Rustic' range includes random bubbling throughout the body of the item, and this vase appears not to have any. The mark is, as you rightly say, standard for that period of production.

Kind wishes, Nigel  

[Sklounion]

Hi Nigel,
This observation was based on forms from that range.
Regards,
Marcus

[paradisetrader]

Nigel
There's a Rustic range vase without bubbling or texturng on p25 of the Graham Cooley Collection exhibition cataogue 2004.

It is very similar in form to Barbara's except that it does not appear to have the deeper rim color which Barbara's piece appears to have.

This feature is evident though in the Texured Range vases on page 29.

All this could be trick-of-the light stuff due to photography / lighting but I don't think so - its the feature I first noticed in Barbara's photo.
Could another possibilities be a variation to the Rustic "norm" or just later production ?

[nigel benson]

Hello all,

I remembered having a conversation with Graham (Cooley) last year before the exhibition, during which he told me that the 'Rustic' range included bubbles. He went on to show me examples. Hence my previous entry.

In view of your observations about page 25 of the exhibition catalogue, Peter, I 'phoned Graham and had a chat about the query. Unfortunately I omitted to mention the illustration on page 25, and its caption - I'll return to that.

It would appear that there are indeed two ranges, one of which is 'Rustic'. Both use the same, or many of the same, shapes - as observed by you, Marcus. However, the Rustic Range includes bubbling, produced by the addition of dry sand during the process.

Peter, I note that the picture beside the one you refer to on page 25 has the caption " Wide Lidded Vase, RSW 21", this should surely read " Wide Rimmed Vases RSW 21", since there are no 'lids' to these vases, but they do have wide rims. I'm wondering if it is possible that these two captions got through the proof reading uncorrected? In my experience this can happen all too easily. Despite having 4 proof readers plus myself on one occassion, mistakes still got through! By-the-by, during our conversation yesterday Graham referred to these wide rimmed pieces as "Top Hats".

As to the comment about the shading, or graduation of colour, on the cylinderical vases, I do think the light source has exaggerated the effect, particularly on the Textured Range photos in the catalogue, but yes, it does occur.

I hope this helps to clear up what may otherwise have become a commonly used mistaken name, Nigel