Topic: Hand cooler by St. Louis?

[Nick77]

This is the first antique hand cooler I have seen in the flesh, I guess that many were damaged and thrown away as with no flat areas they would tend to roll off if put down on tables etc.
When I first saw the  auction house photo on line I thought that there was an annealing crack throught the canes, but they have been made in 2 sections then ground flat and joined together. Many of these I've seen in photos seem to have been assembled as a sphere that has then been drawn into the oval shape which means the canes are very distorted, this method seems to have been used to avoid that. A bonus on close examination was to find the rooster silhouette in the base.

My thoughts are that this is by St.Louis but I cannot find exact cane matches, any thoughts?

Nick

[Nick77]

Close up of Rooster cane

[tropdevin]

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Hi Nick.

100% Saint-Louis as far as I am concerned. I bid on it, but it went for way more than I thought it was worth. Hand coolers and bell pulls of this shape are not common, but not that rare. This one, to be fair, was not the usual hollow blown scramble, but two millefiori scramble hemispheres joined together - hence the apparent 'crack'.

Alan

[Nick77]

Hi Alan
Thanks, I was pretty sure it was St. Louis but just couldn't find exact cane matches. This was my local auction, less than 5 mins drive.
Must say not having seen any come up before I thought it may have gone higher, perhaps I overpaid. It did have only fairly light scratches which are currently being polished out.

Nick

[tropdevin]

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Hi Nick

Looking carefully at your silhouette and comparing it to ones shown in John Hawley's book, I am not sure it is a rooster: I don't think anyone has ever recorded a Saint-Louis rooster cane. They did make a very unconvincing turkey cane, though, which it could be.  Your cane is clearly distorted on the right hand side of your image, which makes it hard to determine what shape it was originally - I wonder whether it might even be a Saint-Louis dog cane?

Alan

[Nick77]

Hi Alan
It's away being re polished currently and I only took the quick photos I have posted here, I'll look closer when I get it back. I see what you mean if the left side was a head not a tail as I thought and the right side is the distorted back end it could be a dog or even a cat if they made one?
What book are you referring to by John Hawley as it's not one I have?

Nick

[tropdevin]

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Hi Nick. 

The book is called 'The Glass Menagerie - A Study of Silhouette Canes in Antique Paperweights' by John D Hawley.  It is on page 4 of the link below to a list of paperweight books.

Paperweight books

Alan

[Nick77]

Thanks Alan I'll look out for a copy.
I acquired a book recently Glass Paperweights by James Mackay printed 1973, some "interesting" attributions at the time, clearly Paul Ysart weights listed as "so called Stourbridge weights" what appears to be a French scrambled listed as by Paul Ysart and Baccarat closepack with B 1848 cane seems to be attributed to Murano. I guess things have moved on a lot since then.

Nick

[tropdevin]

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Hi Nick

Another interesting one is John Bedford's from 1968, issued shortly before Paul Hollister's book.  Old paperweight books fascinate me - especially the changing story of attributions, and the tales of mystery and imagination that some contain.  It is instructive to see how and when  the 'antique Whitefriars' myth arose, and when the Russian plaques were first called 'Mount Washington'. I think a desire to sell items to buyers, rather than give accurate attributions, might have played a part.

Another issue that interests me is when Bacchus paperweights are first referred to as having 'pale and pastel colours'.  Apart from being inaccurate (there are plenty of vivid coloured Bacchus weights), it seems to have first appeared in print in the mid 20th century - that is, 100 years after they were made.  So I think that the originator (whoever it might have been) may have decided that certain pale coloured weights were Bacchus, and attributed them as such.  Evangeline Bergstrom had a Bacchus weight, but she just called it 'Stourbridge' - so I suspect that the name Bacchus was not being used by collectors at that time (late 1930s).

I keep thinking that I should pull all this together, and write an article on it.  I could also include how the commonly held views of paperweight history since 1845 (as expressed by authors in the mid to late 20th century) are over-simplified to the point of being inaccurate and misleading.  It is just not true that few paperweights were made between 1860 and the 1950s, when Paul Jokelson started the 'paperweight revival'.

Alan

[Nick77]

Hi Alan
Yes this one lists Whitefriars paperweights as having been made since 1848, and also at that time only two Islington Glass Works paperweights were known.
I've only had chance to look through briefly. If you don't have it if you wish to borrow it at any time for an article just let me know and I'll post it.

Nick