Topic: exquisitely engraved goblet :-) just rec'd, help with attribution, dating please

[krsilber]

I just got in the post today a much-anticipated engraved goblet, and it's fabulous.  The engraving is the finest quality of any I own.  How I wish I had photos that did it justice, but these will have to do.

I believe this is Renaissance Revival style engraving.  It is polished, though that's not obvious from my photos.  Made in three pieces, not lead glass, very clear "white" blank.  Rim is ground and polished.  Large shallow ground and polished pontil.

FWIW, fluoresces a pale dirtyish yellow white.

I'm thinking early 19th C., maybe English?

Anyone have any ideas?

The detail photo is highly magnified, showing the tiny cuts that went into some of the small, thin curves.  Ordinarily they aren't visible.

[krsilber]

I wanted to add a couple photos and comments, and give this a wee bump - maybe someone new will see it (I see by a search that Ming collects drinking glasses).

I no longer think this is early 19th C - I'm now guessing last quarter of it.  However, in another thread Ming was saying that a very clear, "white" blank is 20th C.  I don't know who would have engraved something like this then, though.  One photo below shows the stem in comparison with my Lobmeyr (and a couple unknown Bohemian) pieces, which are notably greyer.

Also wanted to add that the foot has tool marks; a clapper wasn't used.  The bowl looks mold-blown, very thin, with no tool marks.

I said before that it wasn't lead glass, but that may not be correct.  It doesn't ring well, but that may not be significant.

[Carolyn Preston]

I have some etched glass (choice of wedding crystal) which was (is) distributed by bohemia glass. However, after I picked the pattern, I was surprised to find some with the same pattern, in my mother's china cupboard. When I asked her about it, she said that it had been my grandfather's. I'm thinking it may have come from their wedding (which was late 'teens, after the first world war). I have no idea who made it then and it is unmarked.

Carolyn

[krsilber]

I bet that was a surprise!  I'd be interested to see the etched pattern.

Are you suggesting mine was a replacement piece or reproduction - something along those lines?  It's possible, but the engraver would have had to be extremely skilled to do this, and what's more, extremely skilled in this style.  I believe this is a museum-quality piece.  When I put it next to my Lobmeyr, it makes the Lobmeyr look downright coarse!  Tight curves with thin lines are very hard to do, and this not only has tight curves, the looping ribbons are composed of 3 lines:  the flat, wider line and two very fine lines bordering it.  That means that each loop might be made of 2 dozen individual, minute cuts - yet they look almost seamless to the naked eye.  Even the relatively straight ultra-fine lines are difficult because of their shallowness.  There's no room to go back and correct errors, like there is on deeper/wider cuts.  The precision required is hard to imagine.

I haven't ever seen an example of engraving this fine, requiring the same kind of precision, on 20th C glass.  I don't know if there were engravers capable of it.

That reminds me of something I read yesterday.  Hawkes once got an order for some cameo (relief) engraved glass.  He had several of his top engravers try to do it, and none of them were successful.  They couldn't complete the order.  Just an example of the different skills required by different types of engraving.

[Carolyn Preston]

Well, I have to admit I'm confused between etched, cut, engraved etc. Although my mental picture is that cut crystal is much deeper cuts and is much more common than etched. I believe my glasses are etched. I will try to give you a picture of the new ones and the old ones. Now, to do this properly, I put in a dark piece of paper, right? I will try to get some pictures this weekend. But where does engraved come into the continuum?

Carolyn

[Ming]

Hi! Carolyn and krsilber
First to answer  Carolyn's question about difference between etched and engraved: I won't bore you with technical details.  Etch is a more recent and cheaper method to put a pattern on glass.
If you run your finger along the pattern if you can feel the pattern stick out then it is etched. Where as engraved is an actual cutting process.
Krsilber
From the colour , thickness and engraved of your glass. I don't think it is earlier than very late 19th c and may even be early 20thc. The pattern is certainly not typical Victorian. More like sort of Art and Craft period. Your glass is very nice but l think you are under estimated the skill of some of the past engravers. The products of the past engravers in England and Bohemia were so high and only you can go to the glass museum than you will see what l meant.Your piece is miles away from the museum type sorry to say.
Unfortunately, l do not any of these high standard engraved glass. But l do have a Victorian cranberry glass which has a very small lion head engraved on the bowl(great detail). I will put a photo in my next post when l able to sort out my camera.

Ming

[chloe]

I just wondered when etching first dates from - anyone know?

(Thanks Ming - nice explanation for those of us still getting to grips with things!)

[Patrick]

Hi Kristi,
 Firstly I know nothing about engraved glass but I do understand the amount of work that has gone into the cutting of your goblet.
Next week I will be seeing my friend who loves quality engraved glass. He has no computer but will be able to see your glass on my laptop.
 I will report back with his comments................

All best wishes, Patrick.

[krsilber]

Patrick - that's great!  If you (and he) want, give him my email address.  I'd love to have someone to chat with about engraved glass.  I was just telling a friend of mine, I didn't understand why I hadn't run across anyone who was interested in it.

Carolyn - etching uses acid to form the pattern, while engraving (a type of cutting) uses copper wheels with a slurry of oil and grit, stone wheels, and these days also diamond-impregnated wheels.  If you look at engraving with a magnifying glass you can see striations created by the wheel (unless it's very highly polished).  There are also often characteristic shapes created by wheel cutting, while etched patterns don't have restrictions on the shapes created.  Usually etched patterns have not more than a few different depths (often only one) corresponding to the amount of time the glass was in the acid bath, while cut/engraved patterns can be any depth.  I disagree that etched patterns feel raised.

Etching was first discoved in Sweden in 1771, but didn't really catch on until the mid 19th C; engraving has been around for thousands of years.

Krsilber
From the colour , thickness and engraved of your glass. I don't think it is earlier than very late 19th c and may even be early 20thc. The pattern is certainly not typical Victorian. More like sort of Art and Craft period. Your glass is very nice but l think you are under estimated the skill of some of the past engravers. The products of the past engravers in England and Bohemia were so high and only you can go to the glass museum than you will see what l meant.Your piece is miles away from the museum type sorry to say.

I'm afraid I disagree with some of the things you say.  The design on my goblet is Renaissance Revival style, not Arts and Crafts.  It was used extensively by Lobmeyr (for one) from about 1870-1890.  From what I can tell, it doesn't seem to have been very popular in England, though I have seen some Pellat pieces that are reminiscent of it.  I believe it was more popular in France, but I don't have the references for it.

I wasn't underestimating the skills of engravers of any period, I was saying that this particular style required a kind of skill that I haven't seen demonstrated by 20th C engravers.  There were certainly many phenomenal engravers around in the early 20th C right up until today.  But if you look at the designs they did you will find few examples of tight curves with fine lines.

Engraved glass is my particular interest, and I've seen a lot of it.  I took hundreds of photos of engraved glass at the Corning Museum, and the quality of the engraving on this glass is on par with many of those examples.  I don't know why you say the quality is miles away from pieces in museums.

[Carolyn Preston]

Okay, now I'm confused again. I was going to say that these were definitely engraved not etched, based on Ming's statements. But now KRsilber is saying that the definition is wrong. So where does that leave us. Now I must say that the design on the older pieces is much more elaborate and detailed. I cannot see any striations on either of them.

Here are some pictures...

http://glassgallery.yobunny.org.uk/displayimage.php?pos=-11019
http://glassgallery.yobunny.org.uk/displayimage.php?pos=-11018
http://glassgallery.yobunny.org.uk/displayimage.php?pos=-11017

What do you think?

Carolyn