... Shall we settle on B&T, then? ...
Please Francois - A very definite No to that question. That takes us right back to the Manley dark ages when "Attribution not known" was unacceptable, and if you didn't know, you guessed. That's not the way we do it now, much to most serious glass collectors' great relief.
On the positive side, of the four or five English manufacturers of pearlines (Davidson, Greener, Burtles Tate, Molineaux & Webb, and, possibly, Edward Bolton, although I think it more than likely that the pearline version of Bolton's Grace Darling boat was made by Davidson or Greener), only three are really possible candidates for your wall pocket. These are Davidson, Greener, and Burtles Tate. Molineaux & Webb made very little pearline; indeed their relevant production, such as the fort series (Rd. 29780) and the two pikes (Rd. 29781) could be described as strongly opalescent rather than pearline, and they are not known in blue opalescent/pearline.
... I found an example of another wall pocket marked with the Burtles & Tate registration number 39807 at this webpage on the left hand side:
http://www.glassencyclopedia.com/burtlestateglass.html
Now we have two completely different designs with the same registry mark which lends credence to Christine's theory about the registration being for a shape more so than a pattern. ...
Sid — Is it certain that both of these wall pockets are marked with the Rd No 39807? You can see that Angela's wall pocket is marked with a registered number, but you can't see the number. And you can't see any number on Dave's wall pocket. Until you pointed out the third wall pocket, I had always assumed that there were just two non-Sowerby English wall pockets, the type that Francois queried, and the BT 39807. Until now, had I been presented with an unmarked example of Dave's wall pocket, I would have attributed it as an unmarked BT 39807. Two different fancies with the same registration number is not at all typical of Burtles Tate.
So now we have three. I think we need more information from the two website proprietors on exactly what they are illustrating.
... By the way, don't you think that is an unfortunate name for the blue example. ...
Yes, Sid, thanks for that, as I too have concerns about collectors' names for old glass patterns. In defence of the late William Heacock, he did express some concern about these names in one of his books (I can't find the reference at present), so I like to believe that he was very positively encouraged to invent these names by his publisher who could see the financial benefit of making his publications indispensable. What is rather sad is that Heacock's books were and are indispensable because they are superb reference works. There was no need for the proliferation of unfortunate pattern names.
Bernard C.
Topic: Victorian Blue Pearline Wall Pocket - (Read 4052 times)
