Topic: Tiffany Favrile Ewer?

[scimiman]

I was mearly pointing out that after you saying. "Putting a layer of clear defeats that purpose of it"
was not the case and in fact many glass blowers around the world do this  with a highly desirable effect. I was not saying that Tiffany had or had not used this process.
Mike www.abfabglass.co.uk

[svazzo]

Hi Mike,
Understood, but I was talking about my experience with Italian glass and the few pieces of Tiffany I have been able to see first hand.
If those items were cased over with clear glass, the effect and look would be negated. That is not the aesthetics they are going for in those particular designs. That was my point.
I think if we go into generalities about all glass and all glass artists, we really wont get anywhere.
We will only get more questions that are not at the root of the discussion.

[scimiman]

We are going round in circles so at this point I'm getting off the roundabout.
Mike www.abfabglass.co.uk

[TxSilver]

Coming back in again, rather confused. The stamped paperweight is not yours, Javier, is that correct? And this stamped one was being sold with one that had no stamp, but looked similar, right? And you have a KB ewer and a KB paperweight made in Italy. I am having to sort this out again.

The ewer does not look like Tiffany to me. I don't own Tiffany, but I look at it a good bit. The idea of the ewer being Tiffany would have never occurred to me. We do have someone knowledgeable with Tiffany on Facebook -- Reyne Haines Hersch. She "hosts" the Art Glass Discussion Group. If you haven't joined the group, you can do it with a simple "like." If you post pictures and links, she may be able to help.

I keep trying to turn the ewer and paperweight into "maybe Tiffany" in my mind, but I haven't been able to convince myself. It would be nice if they were, but all the hard data say that they aren't. The stamped paperweight, IMO, is irrelevant because glass techniques can be copied and there is more than one talented gaffers in the world.

[Frank]

The O perfectly formed and centered in the C?  The other two dots clearly are, but that looks like it's part of the stamp to me. 
Why would a stamp have those dots anyway?

The glass is soft and changes shape as you remove the stamp, particularly on flat area, naturally circular and of course operfectly so, you can see similar artefacts in other areas of the stamp.

Javier did you mail the Tiffany fake experts discussed earlier?

[krsilber]

"I thought you knew nada about Tiffany?"  Hee hee, well, um...I'm a quick learner?   

I have as a result of this discussion (for some reason it captured my interest) spent a few hours looking into the matter, but it's true, I don't have much experience with Tiffany.  I do have a fairly strong knowledge of and interest in glass manufacture, though, and that helps.

When talking about a layer of clear, I was specifically talking about Tiffany "paperweight vases," called that because the process is similar to making paperweights.  From http://www.studiosoft.it/antiquetiffany.htm (elsewhere I've read the same thing):

"...Some items decorated in this manner were cased with a layer of clear glass. Such pieces are sometimes called Tiffany paperweight glass. Aquamarine glass, made in much the same way, was embedded with marine decoration, wavy fronds of green with fishes or pebbles, in heavy green glass intended to simulate the sea."

Some of these are favrile, some aren't.  Even if on the outside, the iridescence may be subtle enough that it doesn't obscure the design underneath.

One thing I've read is that Tiffany made their iridescent glass differently from others (though I'm sure others have used Tiffany's method by now).  They incorporated metal oxides into the glass which colored the glass itself, but also reacted with a fine spray of tin oxide, which when reheated brought out the iridescence.  This is opposed to spraying multiple metal oxides on the outside to create the effect.  The result of Tiffany's method would be different iridescence depending on the color beneath.  (There are mixed descriptions on the 'net, but I found a Google book called Fakebusters II: Scientific detection of fakery in art and philately that describes the chemical difference in the outer and base layers between Loetz and Tiffany.)

Let's not forget the little blurb saying Tiffany didn't make Favrile paperweights - a statement supported by a Google which revealed only the questionable spotty type we've seen already, and one in a museum store that wasn't even made by Tiffany.  Plus a lot of paperweight vases.

[Frank]

Looks familiar (Since 1999, the web's first choice for antiques research) Here is one that should be easier to identify for the p/w folks Tiffany paperweight. The site lists some 30 Tiffany weights but not all glass.

Worthpoint also list 3 other Tiffany paperweights.  :help: WorthPoint currently (as of December, 2010) reaches 12 million page views each month. It is ranked 362 out of the top 1 million web sites by Quantcast.com. More page views than the GMB I think!

But august institutions are not immune to the name, don't read the text of course. http://store.metmuseum.org/home-accessories/tiffany-favrile-domed-paperweight/invt/80011840/

[TxSilver]

Frank, the Worthpoint pws are Tiffany & Co., which if different than Tiffany Studios. Those don't count. Could you tell us people who don't know a lot about pws about the fish one?

[krsilber]

Yeah, that Met one was the one I was referring to in my last paragraph.

The ones on Worthpoint aren't favrile, anyway.  Well, maybe the third is.

As far as the ones on prices4antiques go, they are just reporting sales, correct?  So they aren't necessarily saying the items in question aren't fakes...they may have no way of knowing, and the sigs aren't shown.  Personally, the fish one doesn't look to me like Tiffany quality, BWDIK?  But how could that be favrile??  The scarab ones are an exception, evidently not qualifying as "traditional" in the statement I quoted.  But maybe that dude's wrong, I don't know.

Ditto what Anita said in reply 53.