Topic: 17th century nipt diamond shaft and globe decanter

[oldglassman]

Hi ,
          I have been following this thread with interrest, but !!!   was hoping that i would not be the first to cast some doubt on this decanter being 17th century,so here we go as usual with both feet. though as always will be more than happy to be proven wrong ,

Firstly as to the colour , this is not a problem ,if we assume that cobalt Oxide was used to obtain this colour , this has been used in glass for centuries,the glass mentioned  in the V&A is thought by current scholars to possibly come from Formicas glass house in Dublin c 1690, it is also interresting to note that my Dublin Goblet has a slight blue tint which it is suggested ( Colin Brain Glass Cone 97) is from the use of cobalt oxide as a decolourant,these decolourants were not needed in early flint glass but reversion to the use of sand instead of flint and the increasing level of lead oxide in the batch led to a need to reintroduce something that counteracted an unappealing bown tint .

now to the bottle, I have never encountered a bottle of this type from the 17thc that has no pontil mark and a ground top rim , all those I have seen and had over the years have had as expected the normal rough pontil and fire polished rim , a ground rim is also something I have never encountered on any items of english make from the 17th or 18th c ,the form to me is also a little odd , i think this has already been mentioned , the neck seems a little tall in comparison to all the others I have seen and also the base of the neck at the globe part seems to conflict with recorded examples, the un nipped section flaring out from the bottom of the neck to the start of the decoration being a lot larger than normal,
 Now !!!  I see that a parralel has been found in the Australian museum, but,are we to accept that they are correct in thier attribution,could they have merely accepted the information as correct when the item was donated to them ? I am sure we could all point out many errors in attribution to museum held pieces.

there we go !!  jumped in with both feet again , though I hope this will stimulate some further thought on this interresting item , if Rob G would like to send me some detailed photos of the decanter i will happily, with permission, send them to some colleages who have more experience in these bottles and see what comes up.
  the bottle shown below is to my mind a typical lead example from c 1690

Cheers,
          Peter.

[freeblown]

Thank you very much for your input Peter. Perhaps the decanter is later than 17th century. This is why I am now determined to see if I can figure out who the cypher on the stopper represents.

I also agree that the ground lip is atypical for a bottle of this type with these two being the only ones know to me, however if these were in fact made for nobility as the fancy ormolu stoppers suggest, it is clearly a finer quality product to not have an ugly pontil scar on the base of the decanter and it makes perfect sense to me that they would finish the lip this way. It also appears that the grinding on the top of the lip is rather fine, not to the point of being as polished as uncut glass but a very fine satin type finish. This leads me to concur that where ever this decanter was made was probably a place that was also cutting or engraving  glass.

I would be happy to e-mail you some pictures and appreciate very much your willingness to show them. Even if your friends have not seen the decanter, perhaps they have seen a related stopper on something else that could help to date this decanter.

Robert

[Paul S.]

which was why I commented............

"In Bickerton - under coloured glasses - there is a single 'purple' wine glass dated (probably by the V.& A.) to 1690 - and against which Bickerton has added an exclamation mark in brackets.        In the Georgian (British) period - 1740 plus, purple/amethyst was a not uncommon colour (now very collectible) - but how far back prior to that period it goes I don't know.              Am sure that Peter (oldglassman) might like to answer that. ".

I don't have your knowledge on late C17 glass  -  so I was using a little subtlety to draw attention to Bickerton's exclamation mark which he appears to use to cast serious doubt on the date quoted by the V.& A.      Exclamation marks are not a mild form of censure, usually.
However, are you now saying that current thought DOES consider that this particular amethyst/purple drinking glass - shown in Bickerton - to be ex Dublin 1690?        In other words this colour is now believed to be a known genuine late C17 colour.

from what I understand it was the slight blue tint (cobalt decolouriser) which gave rise to Hartshorne's comments on Waterford glass, which then caused so much controversy - so maybe he was partly right - his mistake was to have used the word Waterford in particular.

[oldglassman]

HI,
 "are you now saying that current thought DOES consider that this particular amethyst/purple drinking glass - shown in Bickerton - to be ex Dublin 1690?        In other words this colour is now believed to be a known genuine late C17 colour."

Yes I am saying that with regard to the V&A glass,(Dublin c 1690) re the colour it has long been accepted that these colours, purple amethyst etc  were being used for a very long time for both drinking glasses and the likes of decanters , you will find many examples of 16th and 17thc drinking glasses,bowls and decanters from Venice and the Netherlands using these colours ,see pic below of a late 16th early 17thc winged glass stem

Rob,
  I dont really think its a case of this item being made for the nobility therefor having a tidier base and rim , its a matter of production teckniques employed at the time ,I have seen several of these bottle types in both lead , non lead , coloured and clear with both gold and silver mounts dating from the 17th c , but they are still made in the accepted method for the day .

cheers ,
              Peter.

[freeblown]

Peter, here are two links to higher resolution images.  Robert



http://i885.photobucket.com/albums/ac60/dusty999/IMG_0532.jpg
 
http://i885.photobucket.com/albums/ac60/dusty999/IMG_0533.jpg

[oldglassman]

Hi ,
        Thanks Rob , I have saved those and will see if I can get anything to add .
Cheers ,
              Peter.

[freeblown]

Here is a French 17th century decanter with similar kind of stopper.

[freeblown]

This is going a bit off topic but I have also found another 17th century shaft and globe type decanter with a gold ormolu stopper, however the bottle does have a pontil mark for the metal ring that fits onto the lip of the bottle was made in one piece and it appears that they must have flared the lip into this ring when it was applied to the bottle mouth while holding the bottle with the pontil rod. I'm not sure what country this one is from but if I had to guess I would say France.

Here are a few links to good quality pictures of it:

http://i885.photobucket.com/albums/ac60/dusty999/P1010601-1.jpg

http://i885.photobucket.com/albums/ac60/dusty999/P1010603-1.jpg

[Paul S.]

thanks Peter  -  and like yourself I'm quite familiar with images of purple/amethyst colours "having been used for a very long time" with regard to glass from the Continent and Venice  -  although since we are making the assumption that this piece is British/Irish - then it was to these areas of manufacture that I was referring, and not overseas.       Judging by the lack British/Irish examples in this colour - on C17 wares - then I was having a little trouble seeing this as a really early date line of British manufacture.

[oldglassman]

Hi ,
           yes Paul I understand what you are saying,the Dublin attribution for the V&A glass is based(I think) more on other features than its colour ,there is as you say a lack of coloured glass attributed to England with a definate 17thc date,the thoughts behind this is that at this time the English glass houses were striving to produce a clear and stable lead glass,I am sure the recipies to produce coloured glass were well known to the English makers in the 17thc but their eyes were elsewere,both Formica in Dublin and DaCosta who worked with Ravenscroft on the new lead metal came from Holland and both had their patents granted for new lead glass within a year or so of each other , some of Formicas fragments which have been analysed and found to be identicle to Ravenscroft metal,oooooops babbling again ,  anyway ,I think coloured glass suffered due to the work on clear lead glass.

cheers ,
            Peter.