Topic: Heavy square clear glass bowl with textured outside -- German?

[rocco]

I own this one quite a while, haven't been able to figure out what it is...

Massive square bowl / ashtray, very heavy, 19 x 19 x 5 cm, made of clear (slightly green) glass, upper side smooth, bottom and sides with abstract structure.
Have searched for an impressed signature (thought of Peill and Putzler), but couldn't find anything.

Thanks!
Michael

[chopin-liszt]

Can't help with id, but can say it looks very much as if it's cast.

[rocco]

Thanks for your suggestion!
My guess would also have been that it was cast in a structured form, and then the upper part worked by hand (?).
But I am still not very familiar with glass-making methods...

What irritates me with this item is the light green hue of the glass -- not very typical for these icy-looking designs...

Michael

[chopin-liszt]

I've seen quite a lot of modern cast glass with that greeny tint.
I think it may lend support to the idea that it is fairly recent, and it might help a little bit to narrow the field of research for a maker.

But I'm also wondering if it may be a studio maker rather than a big manufacturer?

[rocco]

It may well be recent, I really have no clue here. But the abstract pattern does look somehow 70ies to me.

[Chris Harrison]

I think I've got this right.
The green tint is typical of a batch of glass containing too much iron oxide.  It is usually more visible in thicker finished pieces.  
You get rid of it by adding manganese, but, if you add too much, you can turn it purple, instead.
A green tint is often seen in older pieces, too.

This piece was probably cast in a sand mould, with a wet wooden block pushed into the surface of the still-molten glass to create the hollow.  I made a few things like this on a weekend course, a few years ago.  I suspect it could be a student piece, especially given the quality of the glass.

[chopin-liszt]

Yes, but contemporary window glass is green - and a lot of sculptures are made using this sort of glass - either from cut bits put together, or cast.
 (I'm pretty sure it's the same stuff used for casting - it's the exactly the same colour - but as I'm not fond of it, I don't really tend to study it - more note it in the passing.)

I would tend to agree that your last comment could well be the case Chris - but again, it's not my sort of thing, so my judgement could be poor.

[rocco]

Thank you very much for your opinions on this!
If you are right and this is some sort of student's work, I guess it will be impossible to find out what it is...

I was only curious if it could be identified (I bought it because it was very cheap and had that 70ies appeal I like)
So this will probably become a nice birthday present one day

Michael

[langhaugh]

Sorry: I thought looking only at your first picture it looked like Boda 3231, so I posted, went back and looked at your photographs, adn realized by mistake. They have very different bottoms.

David

[Chris Harrison]

"contemporary window glass is green" ??

Sorry, Sue, what do you mean by this? 

I know folks who buy boxes of float glass for use in a flat bed kiln (slumping it around metal or organic inclusions).  I've noticed that some of that has a greenish tinge after slumping, but I put that down to being cheap imported glass, rather than the higher quality glass made by Pilkingtons, etc.

Is that the kind of material that you're referring to?

All my experience of casting has been in a conventional glass shop, using a blob of glass gathered from a crucible on the end of a punty rod, and then sheared off into the mould.  I assume that's different from what you're saying.  Always willing to learn...

Cheers,
Chris