Topic: French? Quatrefoil drip rim turquoise jardiniere/vase pulled rim, 4 applied feet

[flying free]

This ia a large vase or jardiniere measuring 7 1/2"tall (19cm) by 6 1/2" wide (16.5cm).  Polished pontil mark, 4 applied clear glass plain feet and clear glass drip rim on turquoise glass body. The rim has 4 pulls on it made with a gadget, the drip rim drip  are also pulled with a gadget.  The rim thickness is 5mm and 6mm in places and it weighs nearly 2 1/2lb or 1.15Kg
The pontil mark is polished and the glass is seedy and has striations in it.  The body bulges out into a quatrefoil shape.
The turquoise is slightly different to the one I have here
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,46824.msg263656.html#msg263656

My searches and books do not contain any the same.  So is it French or could it be Harrach? 
m

[flying free]

I had found one pulled rim four point vase here
id'd as August Jean - the way the rim is done is not quite the same but it's the most similar I found.
http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/5158110
In the book Art of French Glass Janine Bloch Dermant page 27 it says '...And the material alone proved sufficient as an expressive means and no longer required decoration' from which I gather he no longer enamelled his vases and one is shown in the book, the Orchid vase.  However, it also says his pieces are usually signed, in addition I've not found one with the plain and simple looking applied clear glass feet.
m

[Ivo]

Auguste Jean was on my suspect list - but it is going to be hard work to prove it with any degree of certainty. But at least unsigned pieces exist (Cappa, Génie Verrier p. 290) and the colour is a fair match (id. p. 288) - so good hunting.

[flying free]

Thanks for looking Ivo
I started searching French because of the rim pull device of the upward four pulls, which seems to have been a design idea used by a few of the French houses.  In Cappa page 200 there is a Clichy vase (1872-1874) with a green drip rim and applied clear feet - the feet look stubby, plain and quite straight, but the one visible at the back looks as though it might be longer and more curved, so perhaps they are damaged.
Different to the ones on my vase but they have some similarities in that they are quite thick, plain glass and the way they are applied to the body of the vase looks similar.  It will probaby be impossibe to attribute firmly but I shall keep an eye out.
m

[flying free]

Possibly I was also right to question Harrach.
I came across this looking for something else
http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/2089237
It is listed as Harrach but to me the way the frog is enamelled and applied looks very similar to the red vase I linked to above that has a lizard on.  Does anyone know for sure whether they are Harrach or August Jean or whether the similarities are just coincidental and they are both properly identified?
Many thanks
m

[Ivo]

I see no substantiation of either attribution.  Cappa may be questionable at times but at least it is recorded. Harrach is not - or not enough.

[Mike M]

Well perhaps this helps....

the new Jan Mergl book on Harrach has a number of quite similar style examples as does the U(P)M  museum Harrach collection and the Harrach factory museum.

Annoying, although I have the book on order in English - I presently only have the czech version (rather hard to read) -but I've been told that -rather unusually - the book says that Harrach virtually deliberatly copied Auguste Jean. (Unusual in that usually other people copied them!)

cheers

M

[flying free]

Thank you for looking Mike 
When you say has similar examples, do you mean similar to my vase, in that they are plain with drip rims, or similar to the ones with the applied frog and lizard please?
I've found another applied frog Harrach id'd vase on Collectors weekly but to me that frog looks different to the Lizard and frog I've linked to in the above links - the enamelling doesn't have the similarities that the two above do to each other, and it is applied differently to the vase in that  there are no 'pads' underneath the feet like there are on the two above. I suppose it could just be a different decorator of course but it doesn't have the same feel to me  but of course I suppose it is likely there were differences in the individual pieces over the timeframe they were made and they could all be Harrach.
http://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/69943-harrach-hand-painted-enamel-and-applied-fr
I think I need to get the Harrach book - I am grateful that you both look in your books for me so thank you
m

[Mike M]

Actually -looking again there is a great variety in the Harrach pieces (looking across all my sources)-nothing quite the same as either piece -but generally many elements very similar to both -except and I know I've looked before  -no examples of frogs.

Blues, pinks, amber and clear even green - lots of drippy bits and icicles, applied lizards even ducks.

With and without enamelling

cheers

M

[flying free]

Thank you for looking Mike

The only way I can see to check them is by checking the enamelling on the various signed pieces against the unsigned ones.  I've searched these for a long time and I see the same or similar pieces being attributed to Harrach, Moser, August Jean, Leveille etc with no real evidence to support the attributions... for example there is a vase I see that is variously attributed to three of the above makers but I actually think it is a Baccarat vase based on the colour and the enamelling and comparing to a piece in Cappa - I never see it id'd as Baccarat.
 
 For my vase, I think without a signature it's going to be very difficult to find out exactly who made it.  It makes it harder because it has no further applications (apart from the plain feet) and no enamelling to compare to signed pieces either, but I have found an undecorated version (see below).

With regards dating it I found a plain drip rim non decorated Leveille vase in the Musee D'Orsay collection - it's not the same and the only similarities are the drip rim and the use of clear and turquoise glass - it doesn't have a pulled rim, the drip is turquoise on a clear body, so the other way round to my vase, it's a rounded shape and the foot is a circular applied foot rather than individual feet.... but it dates apparently to 1875-1878, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume my vases dates to about that period I think.
link here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/unforth/4534431525/in/set-72157623772207779

Thanks again to you and Ivo for all your thoughts and help which is much appreciated
m