Topic: Small Studio Glass Vase with inverted base -Possibly Michael Rayner or similar.?

[Greg.]

Picked this little piece up recently as I quite liked the use of colours.  Thought this one might be easier to photograph, however, has proven quite tricky to capture the precise detail, especially the colours.

The vase has a deep purple/amethyst swirling effect, coupled with an inky blue random mottling and clear glass casing.  It also has hundreds of small bubbles within the glass and a slight inverted/kicked up base.

I was wondering given the number of bubbles in the glass and base finish, if this was possibly an early piece of Alum Bay glass and possibly by Michael Rayner..? Certainly has some of the ingredients, would welcome all thoughts.

Many thanks
Greg

[chopin-liszt]

The way the colour is used reminds me of a piece I have by Gill Mannings Cox...
Can't find much about her on the web. 

http://www.great-glass.co.uk/glass%20notes/britsk-m.htm

[Greg.]

Thanks for taking a look Sue. I haven't encountered Gill's work before, I'll try to dig up a few examples of her work online. 

[chopin-liszt]

She is mentioned in the little Shire booklet on Studio Glass.
My piece is quite large and has some silver leaf on the surface, as well as being a won ky shape and having all these very textured deep blue enamels.
I might have a pic somewhere...
ta-da!

[chopin-liszt]

hmmm. Might have to take more pics to illustrate properly, Greg. 

[Greg.]

Thanks Sue, from the picture it looks to have similarities to Charlie Meaker's work! How is the base finished on your example..?

I'll also try and drop Alum Bay an email with a few pictures tomorrow, to see if they recognise anything.

[chopin-liszt]

It's upstairs, Greg. I forgot to bring it down with me this-morning.
The surface is very rough, covered in tiny lumpy bits, sort of slightly moon-surfaced. It's deliberate.
It's not Meaker-ish in reality. It's not a good pic for illustrative purposes, (or any other purpose to be honest!)  just one I happened to have on my pc.

[chopin-liszt]

I've got it down, and now that I've studied it a bit, I really don't think there are enough similarities.

My bit has a lot of surface stuff going on - over the silver foil as welll as under. The blue enamel "splodges" are not round, but random shaped, there is an area of pinky red clear glass towards the top of the body, under the foil, while yours has a purply streak of similar shade, running around it.
However, John got an id for a couple of really attractive blue vases one of which might be related?
I'll dig and see if I can find it.

Ta-da!
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,56014.msg317435.html#msg317435

I might have the Gill Mannings Cox downstairs, but no confidence in my ability to photograph it in a way that will show it properly, if you see what I mean.

I need to be able to see it the way it is, before I can photograph it the way it is. At the moment, I can only see bits of it the way it is. 

The base is almost like a "bird-bath" construction, it has a polished roundish flat section to sit on, with a deep indent which is a big, perfectly round, polished pontil scar, which contains her initials.

[Greg.]

Many thanks for taking a look at your Gill Mannings Cox vase Sue 

Its good to now be able to at least rule this one out. I did manage to track a few other examples of her work down online and do feel the quality of her work is noticeably superior to my piece. On the plus side, I must say, its nice to have been acquainted with Gill's work.

Regarding the Alum Bay avenue, I did kindly hear back a couple of days ago.  The consensus of a few of the glassblowers who worked with Michael Rayner was that the piece was unlikely to have been made by Michael. I gather whilst there is a small possibility that the piece was blown by Michael prior to the other glassblowers starting, its is unlikely.

So at present the mystery remains. 

[chopin-liszt]

There are also no bubbles in my G M-C.

Do you think your piece might be related to John's non-crackled one?
It's an unusual particularly inky sort of blue, (as in Quink Ink, the real stuff.)