Topic: Black Azurene pedestal bowl...IOW or who?

[flying free]

I was out pootling around today and came upon this bowl.
It's just under 3" tall (7.2cm ) and just under  3 1/4" wide (8cm).
it appears to be very dark inky blue i.e. black azurene and mostly covered with gold leaf although there are some beautiful smoky blue patches here and there so may have had silver leaf on as well (difficult to tell as they are not the same as the very definite bluey grey patches that were on a donut vase I had).
Another curiosity is that there is no shape match on the catalogues for this.  However there is a shape match but not size match under Kerry Glass in Mark Hills book.  In there page 95 it shows a bowl 3 1/4" in height called a pedestal bowl.  It also says page 94 that the pedestal bowl was unique to Kerry Glass.
So is this Kerry Glass?  did Kerry glass do the Azurene range?  There is no mention of this in the book.
Or is it something else?  is it St Johns??? for some reason that name has popped into my head and I don't even knowif it exists - that option only just popped into my head actually as I am writing this so I haven't investigated it yet.
One more curiosity, the base...it is not polished flat, polished and shiny but not smoothed off.
Will investigate further but any comments always welcome  :sun:
Many thanks
m

[flying free]

more pics

[glassobsessed]

That is small isn't it? I saw a load of small and finely blown stuff for sale when I was on the Isle of Wight that was made at Alum Bay.

John

[flying free]

thanks John.  I've had a look but they don't seem to do anything with this little base and their smallest size seems to be 14cm (mind you that is the online catalogue so I may contact them anyway to see).
Have you seen their 'black' glass?  does it look black or dark blue do you know?
I'll do some more looking.  Thanks again.
m

[scimiman]

Dont ever go by what they or anyone else shows on their web site because there is always for more than that made.
Mike www.abfabglass.co.uk

[flying free]

I agree Mike - I'm going to drop them a line tomorrow.
I'm just curious because it seems to be a Kerry Glass shape, albeit slightly shorter.
I'll see what Alum Bay Glass say and then revisit.
m

[glassobsessed]

I thought Kerry too, I saw a small pink azurene bowl with a pedestal the other day but it had an impressed flame mark pushed into the pedestal rather than onto an added blob of glass (which is more usual). I will try and get the dimensions of said bowl.

John

[flying free]

that label says St Johns Crystal though
I'm confused...because the book says that the pedestal bowl was  unique to Kerry Glass.
mmm, perhaps not unique then.  Or perhaps only Unique to Kerry Glass in that size?
St Johns Crystal...I dragged that out of my memory from somewhere.  I need to look them up.  I thought they only did animals and I can't remember all the details of what they were licensed to produce with IOW, but have now remembered that it was a short relationship....1980's?.
m

[glassobsessed]

Sorry, my stupidity, I was getting them confused too, I meant St Johns Crystal. Things did go awry with St Johns before the end, they were bought out by a Spanish company that started to abuse the agreements reached with IoWSG and it all ended in court. St John's closed not long after, the quality of the later stuff was not that great, which is another thing that makes me think your bowl is not from them. However, I still think Alum Bay.

John

[chopin-liszt]

Absolutely 100% Isle of Wight Studio Glass.
These pedestalled bowls were only produced for a short period of time - fairly scarce.  :thup:

The bits you refer to as being bluey are parts where the silver foil has reacted with the glass a bit more than intended - so possibly made before the Azurene technique was fully "sorted". I think it's a beautiful effect - although it  can go a bit wonky - Ive got a massive cylinder, where there is a thick band of the bluey effect around the top - it's prettier when it's random!

I bought mine on ebay - and the seller had done their homework.  :thup:
It arrived with it's original certificate, with a facsimile of Michael Harris' signature, and a printout of the response from IoWSG to the seller's query about it.
This was written by Jo Silvester, and states that, yes, it is IoWSG, probably from mid-late '80s, the shape is no longer made. This response is dated '03.