Topic: Probably English Bowl - ID Maker?

[msiscoe]

Hello, I see my pictures from yesterday's post shrank to microscopic proportions. I bought this bowl, etched 736 to the base. Can anyone ID the maker? Many thanks.

[Lustrousstone]

What size is it and how many ribs did the mould have? It looks like a piece of English Victorian glass possibly made by Thomas Webb. A blue one is shown in Victorian Decorative Glass by Mervyn Gulliver, p170. He doesn't give it a positive ID but it has remarkable similarities to something very similar that is definitely attributed.

[msiscoe]

Hello, it is mouth blown, with a smooth pontil. It measures 3.5 inches tall, by 6 inches wide and 4 inches deep.

[Lustrousstone]

The dimensions are right. It's not free blown though; it's blown into a mould before final shaping. How many ribs does it have for final confirmation?

[msiscoe]

Hello, I count ten raised areas around the bowl, but the dolphins or serpents are attached. Does that help?

[Lustrousstone]

Assuming the "animals" (Gulliver calls them lizards) are attached to ribs, yes because that makes 12, which is what Gulliver's bowl has.

[KevinH]

See this link to my vase in the 2008 GMB Calendar. (Click the Glass Gallery image for a slightly larger version.)

I think the main colouring is the same as in the queried bowl. Cyril Manley said this was Stevens & Williams "Alexandrite ribbed Rockingham" and an example (pretty much the same as my vase) was illustrated in his Decorative Victorian Glass book. I bought my vase many years ago at an auction in Stourbridge, where it was listed as Stevens & Williams.

The blue bowl in Gulliver's book is formed in a similar way, although the ribbing is much flatter than in my vase. It is interesting that on page 169 of his book, Gulliver shows another bowl with a similar style of decoration using "multi-colouredf splashes over fragments of silver foil". And that one, also with "lizard-type" creatures, is stated to be Thomas Webb, by virtue of the style of the crimped edge matching a known design registration. (Edited to add - Ah! I now see the Christine had alluded to that one, but without the page number!)

It seems to me that the queried bowl has elements of the Thomas Webb lizard-type creatures and the Stevens & Williams "Alexandrite ribbed Rockingham" glass. Of course, "lizard-type" creatures were very popular in the late 19th century and perhaps several companies used them.

Whatever the truth is, I think this is not a Murano piece so I will change the title and move the thread into the general "Glass" forum for now - even though it could well be English.

[KevinH]

For those who like to counts ribs - my vase has sixteen.

I am not convinced that the number of ribs is very meaningful unless it is known that only certain companies used certain numbers. 12 and 16-rib moulds were common.

[Mosquito]

John Walsh Walsh certainly made pieces with similar applied 'lizard-type creatures' as shown by the 1883 ad. reproduced in plate 157, p.228 of Barbara Morris's Victorian Table Glass & Ornaments (Morris calls them fish). There's not an exact match to the piece shown but it does show that Webb was not the only maker to use this style.

For comparison I've attached a couple of pics of what I believe to be a Walsh Walsh piece (note the tails have been reduced on my example, they would have originally extended below to form feet, see no. 160 in the ad mentioned above):

[KevinH]

Ooops! I realised that my reference to "Alexandrite" earlier was nonsense. Manley actually described it as "ribbed Rockingham" (Rockingham being the deep amber colour).

I have used my moderator status to edit myself above.