Topic: Two Mdina vases, further info appreciated :-)

[rocco]

I got Mark Hill's book "Mdina and IOW glass" as a Christmas present. :rah:
This seems to have triggered my success in finding Mdina pieces in Vienna (which isn't too easy, unfortunately).

Yesterday I found the beautiful, rather tall (35 cm) bottle vase with clear strapping, and today a lovely side-stripe/lollipop mix vase, 21.5 cm high, with lots of silver chloride.
Both have the engraved "Mdina" mark to the base, the latter also has a paper label.
I know, neither early or rare, still any info on them regarding date of production, designer etc. very much appreciated

I have read in this thread Mark Hill's comment on another side stripe/lollipop vase, so I guess production should date to late 1970s to early 1980s?
Similar bottle vases are rather hard to find on the net, here is one in orange with blue strapping a little bit shorter than mine, dated to 1979.
I added 2 pics in backlight -- Mdina glass IMHO looks best that way :sun:

Thanks,
Michael

[Anik R]

Very nice pieces, Michael, though I know nothing about Mdina. John (glassobsessed) has got beautiful photos of early and later Mdina glass in his albums.  Worth taking a look and drooling over. 

[rocco]

Thanks, Anik! :hi:

I love to look through John's albums (what a collection! :mrgreen:)
Unfortunately I have never seen any early Mdina glass here in Vienna...

BTW, while searching the board today I saw that you have a nice piece of Mdina as well

Michael

[Anik R]

I had a nice piece of Mdina... actually I had two very nice vases (the lobed one, and a 'fish' type one).  But I gave them away.  C'est la vie.

[rocco]

I just cannot part with anything (and neither can I decide which area to focus in -- so much beautiful glass from all over the world .

All the best for 2012 to Krakow from Vienna! :rah:
Michael

[Anik R]

Who says you have to focus?  A little of the best from all over the world sounds wonderful.

My very best to you as well! :kissy:

[glassobsessed]

Working out a date range for any given bit of Mdina is often tricky, a combination of shape and colour along with any signature is usually how I guess, labels can help too.

I would guess that your attenuated bottle could be anytime from the mid seventies (any signature may help narrow it down a little). The side stripe vase has a pattern I think of as 'chevrons' and I thought that was quite late in date but your vase has a paper label (rather than plastic) and I now notice there is a paperweight illustrated in the book with this pattern (page 51) and Mr Hill says production of this pattern started in the late seventies. I know it continued in use until recently as I used to have this bottle dated '06: https://picasaweb.google.com/Johnmj100/LaterMdinaGlass#5430029823498309282

My grouping of glass made at Mdina as either 'early' or 'later' is fairly arbitrary and mostly reflects my interest, 'early' is 1968 to 1972 - while Michael Harris was still in charge and later is everything that followed, much of it wonderful but just not what I have chosen to collect.
I used to collect everything that took my fancy and I could afford but I ran out of display space and I do not like storing glass in cupboards where it can't be seen so I decided to specialise in Harris and Hoglund. Now I am having to thin out the Hoglund (space again) and I plan to just keep his figurative pieces.

Much Mdina does look good when backlit, the rest seems to work well against a dark background so the surfaces reflect. The same item can look quite different according to how it is lit - see the two photos of this fish vase.

John

[chopin-liszt]

My definition of early is slightly wider than John's - I include as early-ish the period after Michael Harris left, but while Dobson and Boffo were still there - so I include up to around '75-'77-ish, while there were still some seriously exciting and adventurous (and often large) pieces being made, loosely based on MH's designs.
So John would preclude the cube-shaped solifleur vases and the massive 2-tone amethyst and purple strapped bottles, but I don't.

(I think the cubey things are basically "Cut-Ice" vases, just not flattened)

I think (but even I don't trust that!) that your large strapped bottle is probably from the early-ish period (I don't think after Said took over fully in '75 that big bottles were made so much) and I have been told that the Chevron pattern is Said's design - but I thought he designed the horse head things, then discovered recently that he didn't.

Anik,  :hi: how kind of you to give your bits away - just remember, what a friend has, is never lost.  :usd:

[rocco]

John, thank you so much for your detailed answer!

I would love to find a piece from the Michael Harris period one day, but am quite happy with my few beautiful later pieces
One problem here is that nobody knows Mdina glass, so the sellers usually want quite high prices ("don't know what it is, but it is signed" )

Pics of the different marks:
1. Bottle vase mark
2. Side stripe vase mark
3. Mark on one of my favourite Mdina pieces -- vase with bright blue casing, green top, swirling pattern --  is this what is called "Ming" pattern? (The mark looks rather similar to the one on the bottle vase).

Edit: while writing Sue has posted as well, thanks a lot! -- What I remarked is that I saw quite a few of those side stripe vases with narrow top on the net, while there don't seem so many of the taller bottle vases around; at least I couldn't find another one like mine... (BTW, the colour is more turquoise in reality, looks too blue in my pic in the first post)
And nice to see that Anik's Mdina pieces have found a good home. :rah:

Michael

[Anik R]

Oh wow... John, I would have never thought your two pictures are of the same vase.  And I didn't really believe you until I saw that both have got a small air bubble near the left bottom side, and both have got 3 dark spots near the top right.  It's amazing what light can do.  I'm terribly impressed.

(By the way, I think I got confused... one of my vases was a common lollipop and not a fish... or maybe I'm still confused... I really don't know what the difference is, not that it matters now.)