Topic: Cut crystal jug / ewer with strap handle

[Bernard C]

Click image for gallery with three additional views.

Height 8ΒΌ" 209mm, weight 2lb 4Β½oz 1037g.   Neatly finished strap handle with cut oval thumb rest at the top.   Accurate 16-point star to base, which shows considerable light wear.   Note the cut pattern continuing all the way round below the handle.

I bought this because it seems to be clean, undamaged, and unrestored, and it looks early to mid Victorian to my inexpert eye.   Also, if I've got it wrong, it will do nicely as a water jug on our dinner table!   There's nothing quite like it pictured in any of my books.

Enlightenment sought, please.

Bernard C. 

[Frank]

American?

[Bernard C]

American?

Frank β€” although the whole jug doesn't match anything in my books, all the individual features are there in different combinations.   So a British attribution is more than likely.   Having said that, I have no idea what American jugs are like.

Bernard C. 

[glass]

I believe this to be a water jug c1840 and it is most likely to be English. The handle on your jug has been applied at the top and then pulled, later jugs will have their handle applied at the bottom and then pulled up.

Nice one

[Bernard C]

Sean β€” Thanks for that.

Bernard C. 

[Carolyn Preston]

I believe this to be a water jug c1840 and it is most likely to be English. The handle on your jug has been applied at the top and then pulled, later jugs will have their handle applied at the bottom and then pulled up.

Nice one

Okay, stupid question here.    How can you tell which way the handle on a jug has been moved?  :huh:

Carolyn

[Lustrousstone]

The fatter rounded blobby bit is where a handle starts; the thinner less even bit is where it finishes. Browse a few jugs and you'll see what I mean. Here's an example of a handle put on the opposite way to the jug in question. The dating is only a guide/indicator; it's not quite set in stone.

[Bernard C]

Carolyn β€” The earlier strap or pump handle, where it was fixed at the top and pulled down, goes back into the mists of time.   The dab handle, where it was fixed at the bottom and pulled up, was accurately dated by Hajdamach (p.274) to about 1867, from a Hodgetts Richardson & Son patent and a series of Thomas Webb design registrations, themselves interesting as they show incomplete evolution of the top fixing of the dab handle (Gulliver p.270).

Such an innovation would have been spread worldwide within weeks, particularly when given the oxygen of publicity of patents and design registrations, so, as is frequently the case, Hajdamach was unable to trace the originator(s) or even the country(ies) of origin of the new dab handle.   Note that the strap handle continued in use for a long time after 1867.

Bernard C. 

[Lustrousstone]

Bernard!!!

accurately dated by Hajdamach (p.274) to about 1867

[Bernard C]

 :kissy:

Bernard C.