Topic: Diana, Goddess of the Hunt Candlestick ID: Burgun-Schverer, France, 1880s

[rusecure]

I posted this on the ebay glass board and a member suggested I bring it over here for help. I have a pair of these candlesticks which I believe portray Diana, or Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt. They are 10.5 inches tall and 4 & 7/8 inches wide at the base. She has a quiver on her back and is reaching back for an arrow. There is some kind of dead animal hanging down at her side. There are 4 lions heads around the base. There are 3 visible seams. I inherited the pair and am trying to find the maker, age and approximate value. I will greatly appreciate any help you can give me!

Mod: thumbnails removed and larger pictures attached as requested.

[Cathy B]

Hi, and welcome to the board. Your pictures are too small for us to see the details. Could you reduce the original photos again so that the longest side is about 600 pixels? Let us know if you need help.

[pamela]

Welcom to the board!  May I also ask you, where you live, please?
Guess your candlestick holders are these
http://www.pressglas-pavillon.de/kerzenhalter/03524.html

maker Burgun-Schverer, Meisenthal / France - 1883 catalogue

[rusecure]

I will try to go back and work with the pictures. I worked hard to get them small because they would not post and guess maybe I got them too small.

Pamela, mine are frosted glass and those are clear glass. So that makes me wonder. I am very grateful to see the ones you found but wonder if it was also made in the frosted glass. They sure look like the same figure portrayed. I am located in the Knoxville, TN area.

[rusecure]

Cathy I resized the photos to 600 on long side and got error message that they were too big to load. I can't find anything on my computer that compresses so am stumped.

Pamela, sorry I didn't think to put Knoxville, Tennessee, USA

[Cathy B]

Hi, what program are you using to resize the images? Most will give an option for compressing jpegs when you save - if so, try saving at a lower resolution - say, about 85. This should make a 600 pixel width image small enough for the board.

Alternatively, if it's all too much, just use the little envelope under my location to the left, to email me the originals, and I'll fix them and replace them for you.

It's all a bit of a learning curve to start with, but it's definitely worth the effort!

Cheers!

[Cathy B]

Hi rusecure,

I've emailed you privately, but I'll repeat it here.

I use the Gimp 2.6. The trick is to do the following:

If you can, crop the excess background from the picture. Do this by

1. opening the toolbox - go Tools/Toolbox (or Cntrl + B).
2. Click on the rectangle in the top left hand corner of the box, which is your rectangular selection tool.
3. Click, hold and drag a box over the relevant areas.
4. Go Image/Crop to selection.

I've used this method to crop to Diana's face to show the detail.

Okay, after this, you scale the image so that the longest side is 600 pixels.

1. Go Image/Scale Image...
2. Change the largest side to 600. Don't click on the little chain icon, since it maintains the proportions. If you click on that, you unlink the two dimension and will end up with one dimension scaled only and a distorted picture.
3. Click on 'Scale'.

The final compression happens when you save.

1. Go File/Save as.
2. chose a new name
3. click Save

You will now see the box titled 'Save as JPEG'. At the top of the box is a drag bar labeled "Quality". Click on this bar and drag it back to about 90. this should compress the JPEG enough to fit the board.

You can play around a bit - slightly larger pictures (up to 800 pixels) will fit if the quality is even less, but you might lose detail.

Most other graphics manipulation programs will compress JPEGs during the save operation. Be aware though that every time the JPEG is resaved and compressed that it will lose quality. This can be fine on the web, but disasterous if you're wanting to print!

I also like to sharpen (filters/enhance/sharpen) and up the contrast a bit (colors/brightness and contrast), especially on clear glass where it can be hard to see the detail. mind you, that looks okay on my laptop and I have no idea what it looks like on other monitors.

Some others are far better with image manipulation, so they might correct me!

Hope that helps.

[pamela]

I'm quite sure that all four originate from same mould 
Dip etching them is no problem if the market required a frosted finish. 

[Cathy B]

I'd go with Pamela's attribution. Note that the acid dip would smooth out some of the detail as well.

[Lustrousstone]

Many European pressed glass items were made in frosted and non-frosted finishes, with part frosted sometimes being a third option.