I would agree, almost certainly a sugar basin - and date wise probably around the last decade or so of the C19, so definitely Victorian, but could be a tad later. Georgian sugar bowls were more delicate, because they were blown and not pressed, and usually coloured or opalescent and often with folded feet, and with inscriptions such as 'Be canny with the Sugar' and 'Peace and Plenty'. Presumably the late C19 examples would have contained granulated sugar, whereas the earlier pieces might have contained lumps only - but I'm not sure when sugar in granules became the norm - anyone know??
The Michael Parkinton sales catalogues contain some very attractive coloured early C19 examples (mostly with pedestals) - whereas the S. & F. catalogues include shed loads of the later pressed sort, again mostly with pedestals, and many of these have highly ornate pressed designs. Plain Victorian basins seem often to have been decorated with bands of cut olives and hollows, like yours.
It seems that the majority of the later pressed basins did not have lids, and presumably none of the earlier sort had lids.
Victorian sugar basins can be confused with comports, which were nearly as common as the basins - the difference being that basins were of a size not varying much from your example, whereas comports had bowls of only half the depth and more gently sloping sides, plus their diameter was usually greater than that of sugar basins.
I'll try and post some pix of Georgian and Victorian shapes.
Topic: Old cut glass comport? Bonbon? Sweetmeat dish? (Read 2885 times)
