Topic: Id needed on amber/blue dimpled vase please

[Littleblackhen]

I bought this beautiful vase which fades up from Amber at the bottom to blue at the top. The glass is dimpled all over.  It feels well made and good quality.  By co-incidence I bought another bowl that has a similar colour and feel to it, which I will post in another thread, so I am wondering if they were made by the same maker.

It has a fair amount of age wear to the base, so hopefully should be quite old.

I would like to know who it was made by and what sort of date it might be please?

[Cathy B]

Not my area at all, but it might be worth searching on bluerina.

http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php?topic=1247.15 - this is a fantastic thread, by the way. Don't be put off by the lack of images.
http://www.burchardgalleries.com/auctions/2004/sep1904/01images/l287.htm

[Littleblackhen]

Thanks for the links Cathy

What a shame all the images have gone from the first thread - very frustrating.

The second link didn't work for me, but I searched from the home page of Buchard Galleries and found this vase (maybe it is the one you linked to?)

http://www.liveauctioneers.com/h/item/489545?prev=search&ah=196-6d08d&category=&itemtype= 

which looks very closely related to mine, so thank you for that lead.  It still doesn't give a maker or date though, or even a country of origin.  The other bluerina in their archives was refered to as Victorian, so it would be interesting to know if this was the same age.

Google gave me this link which has more information.  Thomas Webb is mentioned as a possible maker, as well as several American makers.  I would love it to be Thomas Webb as I have a preference for their glass

http://www.tias.com/7815/PictPage/1920863911.html

[Cathy B]

That's the piece - first link is fixed now.

There may be no pictures in that thread, but you can establish quite a bit from the description. For instance, if I'm reading it rightly, there seem to have been two ways of making this bluerina effect - one involved casing or flashing the amber glass with a layer of blue, and the other involved a heat-reactive technique, heating and then reheating the top at the glory hole to strike and then re-strike the top half, which would change from amber through red to blue. The reactive element was gold. Does yours appear to be flashed, or restruck?

If bluerina really is re-struck amberina, you might be able to find a match in amberina.

[Littleblackhen]

Hi Cathy

I have had a look at the vase, but I'm afraid I don't have the experience yet to tell the difference.  It doesn't seem to be any thicker at the top.

The one thing I have noticed is that the base is quite different to the items of bluerina I have seen on the web, which are mostly attributed to the New England Glass Company or the Boston Sandwich company.

I really like it, and now I have looked at Amberina too, I can see a whole new collecting craze starting!  Shame I can't afford to keep it.

[flying free]

This reminds me of some Borske Sklo pieces - the shape and the optical effect and I'm sure there's been some on here or some discussion on here about pieces with that base.   I can't find a definite to compare at the mo, but thought I'd add it in.
m

[flying free]

mmm, I'm not so sure now I've found a link (Daniel's lovely site) to the base I was thinking of as it doesn't look the same
http://www.flickr.com/photos/art-of-glass/4108263139/in/set-72157622825914590
however I still think it looks like a Borske Sklo piece, and similar in shape to the piece in Mark Hill's book on page 130.
m

[Cathy B]

Hi m,
They do resemble the shape of that gilded and enamelled piece from the Nemo range on p. 130 of Hi Sklo Lo Sklo. However, it's a common shape, and the major difference in the piece in question is that the dimples are optic - i.e. they're on the inside of vase, not the outside.

[Cathy B]

These are closer I think:

http://www.artfact.com/auction-lot/hobbs-bluerina-inverted-dot-glass-tumbler-ca.-189-1-p-71093a41f7
http://www.tias.com/7815/PictPage/1920863911.html

and an amberina version (scroll to the thumbnail - thumbnail only, the ad has gone)
http://www.showcaseantiques.com/newsletter1007.htm

Course I could well be wrong!