Hi Emma - Sowerby offered many celeries and with a great variety of decoration - moulded, engraved and cut, some of which double up as stands for large dishes etc. These things seem to have been an obsession with the Victorians - as an item of table ware they seem to have been produced by almost every factory involved in making pressed glass. I've looked through the Sowerby CD catalogue but regret I can't see this particular design.
However, there does seem to be an example of your design in Raymond Notley's book 'Popular Glass of the 19th & 20th Centuries' (one of the Miller's 'Collector's Guides'). It's described as 'an urn-shaped celery, unmarked, but probably made in France or Belgium', and is given a date of 1880's - although the example in the book doesn't have the wheel engraved fern decoration like yours. This sort of decoration was a very popular form of Victorian decoration, so this certainly lends support to the author's date line.
Quite what prompts Raymond Notley to suggest the particular origins given, he doesn't say - maybe the Continentals were fond of urn-shaped pieces.
What made you suggest Sowerby??
Topic: sowerby (Read 813 times)
