Topic: porringer? loving cup?

[redheat4]

Hi all, what would you describe this lovely piece of amethyst glass as?

It stands 15cm tall has a polished pontil and weighs in at 1.1kg.

[Lustrousstone]

At that size is may just be a sugar bowl. It was a very common form in the USA in the 1920s and 1930s and even longer. One pressed glass example is the Hazel Atlas Royal Lace sugar bowl.

[Frank]

A porringer is more of a low bowl and usually only one handle. The difference between a loving cup and a sugar bowl/trophy/handled vase is fairly arbitrary unless appropriately engraved - and it could just be named so by a maker for marketing purposes.

[deco.queen]

The handles look hand applied and not anything like American Pressed Glass.  I would think European sugar bowl.

[nigel benson]

Hello,

Frank is right in his description in that a porringer has one handle on a low bowl. However, the handle is not a loop, more an everted panel of glass that is a continuation of the body of the vessel.

The fact that it is everted is important, since often cut down decanters are used to make-up a quasi-porringer, but of necessity the handle can only follow the line of the body of the vessel vertically.

Therefore this is not a porringer.

I also agree with Frank's observations about naming the vessel according to size and/or best marketing opportunity.

Nigel

[Lustrousstone]

I didn't mean that it was pressed, just that this two-handled form was common for sugar bowls

[redheat4]

Thank you for your suggestion of sugar bowl Christine, I have found some excellent American glass examples from the early 19th century in R. A. Robertsons  “Chats on old glass” and I must admit I thought my piece was too deep for a sugar bowl but seeing those it is a possibility.

Notwithstanding your excellent descriptions of a “porringer” Frank and Nigel, a description that I may add is echoed by Wikipedia, I find it fascinating that 98% of all “porringers” illustrated on 2 auction result sites, several reference books and countless antiques valuation books have 2 handles and some 68% of these could hardly be described as having a shallow bowl, indeed one example of a glass “porringer” illustrated in “English Table Glass” by Percy Bate, published 1913, is over 11 inches in height and is similar to this 6 ½ inch one. http://www.antique-glass.co.uk/Collectors_curiosities.htm

So though my piece is technically not a “porringer” there does seem to be a general acceptance within the antiques arena that a two handled deep cup can be described as a “porringer”.

However, whatever one wants to describe my piece as, it is undeniably a magnificent example of early 19th century glassware. :thup:

[nigel benson]

Ian,

My apologies, you are quite correct, twin handled, lidded and often with a single spout - a porringer.

My excuse - I was thinking of a piggin and simply crossed the two names in my thought process   - without checking, that'll teach me

This also means Wikipedia is wrong

Good piece of detective work by you though - I don't think you really need us

Cheers, Nigel

[Frank]

The actual design can vary, as with any household object and as I said it is "usually"a single handle. The consistent part is that is invariably a low bowl.

A loving cup will also be found with 3 handles, the 3rd represented a chaperone.