:shock::cry:
Barbara - I don't know how I managed to miss your Blue Aurene bowl!!!
Was it on round about the time of the Ysart Conference? I was absent from eBay that week.
David, I too would love to know what reference books you know of that have information about IoWSG or Mdina apart from Lesley Jackson. As far as I know there aren't any books with anything that isn't taken from Lesley Jackson - including the Miller's guides!
Nigel, your paperweight sounds as if it could be a variation of Gold Aurene. I have a lollipop with the flame pontil that sounds about the same as your weight. As you know, early pieces may have a broken pontil mark, the coach-bolt pontil mark or the flame pontil mark. I do hope that it is signed Mich
ael Harris, not Mich
eal Harris, the latter is usually dremmelled (sp?) :twisted: ! This (gold aurene) is mentioned in Lesley Jackson along with Blue Aurene, and is basically the same colours and textures of glass, without the blue bit.
(Edited here:- I shall have to confirm this with IoWSG. I now suspect that gold aurene is basically yellow with red, and that blue aurene is basically blue and ochre)
I was in correspondence with IoWSG following the purchase of some archive pieces, listed in the archive as "Seawood". I got quite excited about the name, thinking it was an unusual range I'd never heard of, and it is particularly beautiful. The listing described it a small amount of stuff produced for only a couple of years after Aurene. However, when the pictures of the archive pieces were shifted to another part of the site, having been sold (to me), the dates were different, and the "Seawood" name was gone. I was told that actually, "Seawood" was a misprint, and that the pieces were not "Seaward" either, but an experimental variation of "Blue Aurene". They were definitely produced after Aurene, and were definitely not Seaward. I was also told that there was a lot of experimentation and that many colourways/pieces do not have names at all. Speculation about names etc. is probably a bit of wishful thinking by collectors who want to be able to put things into pigeon holes, something I imagine that is much easier with eg. Whitefriars, where stuff was made in production runs, using moulds, rather than the methods of hand-made, free-blown studio glass.