Topic: Griffin Vase - ID = Edward Moore (three swan vase)

[MHT]

Many years ago I was talking to glass dealer Ronald Inch in the Portabello Road, he said he had a collector who had 26 of these vases in different colours and was looking for more.

[Simba]

  Wow !!

[Anne]

Can't manage to find 26 of them (26 wow!) but am adding three more links for reference:

Turquoise slag - fab! http://1st-glass.1st-things.com/gallery-slag/slides/turquoise-slag-glass-vase.html
Blue slag: http://1st-glass.1st-things.com/gallery-slag/slides/mooregriffinslagvase.html
Pair of amber: http://1st-glass.1st-things.com/gallery-victorian/slides/vvmooregriffinvases.html

 

[Mosquito]

White opaque glass:

[Paul S.]

these things do seem to have a special appeal for some people - about a dozen surfaced in the two separate sales of the Michael Parkington collection, back in 1997 and 1998 - so he was obviously quite keen, and had managed to collect what look to be most of the varieties of marbled glass colours, plus a pair of what were described by Christies as 'jet'.
Apart from the pair in jet, Christies used the word 'malachite' to describe all of the various marble colours - which we probably wouldn't do now, preferring to say marbled, although Christies did refer to the moulding as representing swans - which agrees with the books.

The auction house included the 'attributed to Sowerby & Co.' statement, but went on to say 'unknown maker, and gave the Barbara Morris reference quoted above.
I wouldn't dare comment on these things since I know nothing about them, but my interpretation of Ray Slack's comments are that he wasn't suggesting that all of the colours are wrong for Sowerby  .......   he says   "appear in many colours which are not associated with Sowerby".
I get the impression that Sowerby made a variety of colours in marble glass (malachite), plus of course white vitro-porcelain, and jet.

Regret I've not seen a single example - but agree they're appealing   ......   is the connection along the same lines as Leda and the swan?
The Victorians were big on these Greek classical mythology things  ..        or perhaps it's just a vase with three swans

[Anne]

Thanks for adding this Paul, it's an interesting topic.

I also found there is a 3-page article in German (PDF) on pressglas-korrespondenz.de here: www.pressglas-korrespondenz.de/aktuelles/pdf/pk-2006-4w-stopfer-moore-vase-schwaene.pdf

Eduard Stopfer says the vase is known in 3 sizes (the image from Slack is included in the article.)

Sigmar Geiselberger replies by saying, "For the first time I could with Mag. Markéta Tronnerová, Curator of Glass, the custodian of the Moravian Gallery in Brno [Moravian Gallery in Brno] Fall 2006 Such vase opaque blue, marbled pressed glass marvel at full size: had the dimensions to the pictures I not been taken seriously! These vases are there of around 17 cm up to 25 cm!"

That Sigmar has found them in a Czech glass museum in Brno is interesting, I thought.

[Paul S.]

would agree with you Anne - although as we know glass does travel - and remarkably far at times it seems, but makes you wonder if there was a mould that also travelled   ..........     from memory the sizes quoted in the Christies catalogues for the Parkington examples are 17.00 and 17.50 cms.            But 25 cms. does look to be substantially larger than those in the U.K. literature.
As everyone knows, there are trademarked Sowerby spill vases and flower troughs which are adorned with swans  -  so presumably a bird that was thought highly of at that time  -  perhaps because it has a Royal connection maybe?

[brucebanner]

The two I have are 7 inches and 6 3/4 inches or 178mm and 172mm they must have come from different moulds may be ?

[Lustrousstone]

Different moulds sounds likely. Quarter of an inch is within acceptable tolerances. The moulds were hand made after all. It's likely that more than one mould was in use at a time any way.

[mhgcgolfclub]

White opaque gilded glass