Chris — A beauty.
... and thanks for counting the pattern repeats.
It is Walsh
Mother-of-Pearl, 100%, no question at all. Production period uncertain, but most examples seem to date from the 1890s to the early 1920s in my opinion.
Their swags/drapes dip-moulded pattern is not one of their best known, but, by chance, I happen to have another similar example in stock.
The lovely crackle effect is not particularly common. Previously I've only seen it on their seaweed decorated cornucopiae with twiggy feet, again with well-flared rims (for an example see Gulliver p91, and, yes, that example is Walsh
Mother-of-Pearl). It came about because of the difference in melting points of the two different types of glass used.
A tiny gather of an opaque or semi-opaque white opal, probably a lampshade glass, was cased in further layers of clear or coloured glass to make Walsh
Mother-of-Pearl. After dip-moulding and blowing to the required shape and size, it was transferred to the pontil rod for finishing the rim. At this point, when flaring and/or crimping the rim, the slightly higher melting point of the white opal sometimes caused the crackle effect as it started to solidify while the rim was being stretched into shape. Note that the rim on your vase was crimped by the use of a former. The final process before cracking off the pontil rod was iridising, using a muffle oven.
Finally, to avoid confusion, you should always include the word Walsh with
Mother-of-Pearl when describing this glass, also noting that it is not air-trap. What happened was that back in the mists of time one of the American glassworks used the term
Mother-of-Pearl as a name for their range of air-trap glass. This expression, often abbreviated to
MOP, then became standard collector terminology for air-trap in the USA. Hence the need for clarification.
Nigel —
Vesta Venetian can be found in Walsh
Mother-of-Pearl and other styles. The salient feature of
Vesta Venetian is that it was ribbed, twisted, and then ribbed again using the same dip-mould, usually 18-rib, giving the effect of threading under vertical ribs. The first example and the second shallow bowl are both (also both 18-rib, also the foot on the first looks to be 16-rib, as expected); the second posy is Walsh
Mother-of-Pearl, but not
Vesta Venetian. Fielding's text is slightly confusing; possibly either a semi-colon or exchanging the two descriptions would have helped.
Bernard C.
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Topic: Loetz, Walsh or something else? ID=Walsh 'Mother-of-Pearl' (Read 5296 times)
