Topic: Huge lime yellow Vase with red handles (Chinese ?)

[Gilead]

Hello.
        Could someone please tell me what style of vase this is or is it a drinking vessel i purchased this along with 5 other pieces of glass today.

The vase stands 12ins high as red handles both the handles and the vase look like paint but are glass, how is this achieved ?, is this Chinese or is it Italian. the pontil is finished well and polished, is this glass modern?
                                                                                          Steve

[Gilead]

Could this be from india, do they make glass vase's i have looked on ebay for this or something simular since i put this post up but nowt, but to be honest i can see why it's horrible, wonder if the rest were broke if any was made
                                                                                                                      Steve

[Frank]

Cannot really tell from the photos, but the handles were probably enamelled on the surface, this tends to give a 'painted' look. Whereas the body was cased with clear after the enamels were marvered in.

[Gilead]

Hi Frank
           The handles do look painted until you get up close and realize that they are coloured glass, the yellow tends to get lighter in the sun and can been seen though, towards the top, less enamel i presume?
                                                                                            Steve

[krsilber]

Enamel marvered in?  I thought enameling was a cold process (though fired after application).  Could be a frit, though.

[Ivo]

colour powder (enamel) can be applied directly to the glass when hot by marvering it into the parison, then covering it with clear glass and blowing it out. The handles were treated the same way - except for the clear casing so the colour appears to be on the surface.

The same enamel powder in a liquid form (do they still use eggwhite for this?) can be used to decorate prefabricated vessels and is subsequently fixed by reheating. 

The orange/yellow vase probably originates in Romania or in China.

[krsilber]

Maybe it's yet another US/UK difference in terminology, but I must admit I'm a bit skeptical (feel free to provide references and prove me wrong!).  I've never heard of enamel referred to as anything but the stuff painted on in liquid form, and that's in English books as well as American.  The powdered color marvered into glass is frit (ground glass), which is a component of enamel.  Enamel also contains a flux to lower its melting temperature so it will fuse when low-fired.  I imagine a variety of liquids has been used over the years to make it paintable; Newman describes it as "oily."

Since enamel is a form of glass, sometimes it's hard to tell the difference, but I agree with the others that in this case the handles (and inner glass layer probably) were rolled in frit to give them their color.

Sorry - none of that helps with identification!  If I had to guess, I'd say Chinese. 

[Frank]

It is another one of those terminological inexactitudes, see the frit discussion here http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,6269.0.html where I also use the term as I used enamel above. Both are equally correct and both, along with other terms, were used throughout the industry. It would be a dull world without such variety.

[krsilber]

Oooh, I hate terminological inexactitudes!

If "enamel" was used throughout the industry synonymously with "frit" as an application to hot glass, how come I've never heard it and can't find such a use anywhere?  For some forgotten reason I have in the past I've looked up "enamel" in several glossaries and books, and did so again in a few recently.  All the definitions I've seen match Corning's:

"Enamel
A vitreous substance made of finely powdered glass colored with metallic oxide and suspended in an oily medium for ease of application with a brush. The medium burns away during firing in a low-temperature muffle kiln (about 965°–1300°F or 500°–700°C). Sometimes, several firings are required to fuse the different colors of an elaborately enameled object."

Even if some in the industry used "enamel" to describe a process at the furnace, given that the vast majority of people use it otherwise, it seems to unnecessarily complicate matters to retain that usage when "frit" will do just fine.  Variety is okay, but I think good communication is more important; there's a lot to be said for standardization (or even standardisation! ).


...OK, I found a couple references on the 'net to enamel as simply ground glass, but those were about enameling metal.

[Frank]

The benefit of retaining multiple description is that when you uncover new source material you will recognise that some terms could have multiple meanings. As the Frit discussion shows collectors often adopt a term and re-apply it. So perhaps any single definition is only valid for a place and period in time.

Taking standardisation to heart would involve re-writing every dictionary and only allowing one meaning per word and one word per meaning. But as long as we can say "As blue as the water in a lagoon" and understand, despite never having visited a lagoon - we can be certain that computers will not take over.