Topic: Steuben Moss Agate or Webb Corbett Agate Flambe?

[flying free]

I've had this a while.  Difficult to get a good glamour shot because of the decor.  Anything that looks like pale blue enamels is in fact lilac enamels btw.  It's an utterly beautiful decor.  Amethyst interior, enamels swirled and full of bubbles, then cased in something but I don't think it's clear.  Looking through the foot it has a greeny yellow tinge to the cased glass.
It's marked with an engraved 2 on the base and is missing it's original lid (came with a silver plated lid instead and I knew it was missing when I bought it).   It's a powder bowl missing it's lid, but a great shape as a vase.

The base glass is not cobalt blue, blue, blue john, dark blue or any kind of blue it's a deep amethyst, and not that translucent at all - I had to shine a single bulb very close up behind it to get it to pick up translucency on the camera, and to show the colour.

It has a small integral foot that reminded me of my Daum Jades bowls however the polished pontil mark is much larger than those.  Kind of Stevens and Williams larger, nearly fills the whole foot.  Loads of wear around the thin edge of the foot.  It's old.

I felt when I bought it that it was Webb Corbett Agate Flambe.  However looking at all the pics on the net, I don't know whether it's just the decor is difficult to photograph in a representative way, but I could not get mine to look like any of the pics I've found.   I still feel it could be, but it's not quite right somehow.  Perhaps it is a different version in the range?

Then I stumbled upon this vase (see link), sold in 2005 as Steuben Moss Agate.  I'm not sure it is.  I've no idea if it is.  I thought it might be Webb Corbett Agate Flambe perhaps as well?  But whatever it is I would like to know because the hand that made this vase, made my bowl   Is it a Stevens and Williams decor maybe? 

http://jamesdjulia.com/item/lot-698-steuben-moss-agate-vase-61112/

So ... if any wise person can tell me I'd be extremely grateful.
Thanks so much
m

[flying free]

pics added.

For my penny's worth I don't think it's Steuben and do think it is Webb Corbett Agate Flambe (or perhaps something else entirely), however I couldn't get it to look like this example any which way I tried (see link below). It just doesn't show as see through like Andy's vase does because the base glass is dark amethyst.
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,25777.msg142523.html#msg142523
and Andy's vase looks like the bowl in this link to me
http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/5715143

[KevinH]

Summarizing from from Harold Newman, An Illustrated Dictionary of Glass: Stevens & Williams' "Moss Agate" had an interior of crackled (soda) glass with two layers of non-crackled (lead) outer glass which contained the "agate" decoration.

Cyril Manley, Decorative Victorian Glass pages 70/1 shows two items that fit the "crackled and non-crackled" principle with swirly streaks of "moss agate" colour. And the internal crackling is clearly visible through both pieces since the powdered decor does not fully cover the outer areas. I have no reason to think that Manley, in this instance was mistaken.

So, on that basis, this bowl is not, in my view, a Stevens & Williams "moss agate" item.

However, the colouring and overall coating of the main decor, does seem to be how the (later) Steuben items were made. Harold Newman's book says they were

usually red, brown or yellow, but rare examples are blue, all with variegated colour shading ... so that no two pieces are identical.

Not sure if that helps or hinders!

[flying free]

definitely helps clarify my searching and thanks

Perhaps the base glass on some of the Agate Flambe vases was paler and more transparent than the amethyst base on my bowl, which might explain the difference in the photographic representation?

I went to Gorgeous Glass (Broadfield House) to find examples:
This link shows a vase pictured in CH 20th Century British Glass, which matches the shape of one shown on the same page 111 in a reprint of a 'Coloured sheet issued by Webb Corbett' in the 1920s for their Agate Flambe
http://blackcountryhistory.org/collections/getrecord/DMUSE_BH2949/

If you enlarge that picture it appears to be the same decor as this one I linked to earlier
http://jamesdjulia.com/item/lot-698-steuben-moss-agate-vase-61112/
and the same decor as my bowl.

Which makes my bowl Webb Corbett Agate Flambe *

The mottled bowl I linked to above that said it was a pre-Steuben Stevens and Williams Moss Agate doesn't look anything like S&W Moss Agate that I know of, which is as Kev described:
and is pictured here
http://blackcountryhistory.org/collections/getrecord/DMUSE_BH212/
I think that bowl is probably also Webb Corbett Agate Flambe as it is so similar to the decor on Andy's second photograph.

Andy's vase appears to be pictured in CH 20th Century British Glass page 111 as Webb Corbett  as well - the shape of his matches one photographed and also one pictured in the 'Coloured sheet...' .

*What is weird is that I cannot get my bowl to appear 'translucent'  however I light it, yet the pieces in the book all look translucent like Andy's first photograph.  But I'm convinced mine and the James  D Julia vase are both Webb Corbett Agate Flambe.

I'll add some pics of identified Steuben Moss Agate for comparison in a sec.
edited to add
This is a pic of an id'd Steuben Moss Agate lamp with shape match
http://www.cardersteubenclub.org/shapes/item-view.cfm?category=Shape%20Index&recordID=24592&back=1
and vase
http://www.cardersteubenclub.org/shapes/item-view.cfm?category=Shape%20Index&recordID=27643&back=1
and here is an amethyst version of the same lamp shape
http://www.cardersteubenclub.org/shapes/item-view.cfm?category=Shape%20Index&recordID=22889&back=1

This is a Steuben Moss Agate vase (lot 359 on the link) which sold for $14K (would have been nice if my bowl were Steuben lol)
http://jamesdjulia.com/205_shs/
m
 

[flying free]

This piece (3rd piece down) is referred to as 'Stevens and Williams 'splash-glass''
http://www.great-glass.co.uk/shops/shop2-3.htm

It has a silver lid as well.
I think it's the same decor as mine and it looks as though my lid is probably original to my box then.  Very pleased to find that.
Their id's were very good usually.  I'm wondering why it's called Stevens and Williams 'splash-glass'.

Also still harking back to this vase sold by James d Julia in 2006 as Steuben Moss Agate.  It is definitely the same decor as mine, on the same dark purple base glass I believe.  The shape is not shown in the examples in Charles Hajdamach's 20th Century British Glass under the shapes shown as Webb Corbett Agate Flambe and neither is the glass style - i.e. all in the book are somewhat on a more see-through glass base.
http://jamesdjulia.com/item/lot-698-steuben-moss-agate-vase-61112/


I have found this article from the Birmingham Post. It appears to replicate some descriptions from the Lesley Jackson book 20th Century Factory Glass.
It describes the Webb Agate Flambe as being sold as
' New English Art Glass', and described them as 'plain vessels with either orange/red or blue/opaque mottled colouring.'
I don't think my bowl reflects this description.  It's purple, nowhere near blue definitely purple but I don't think I'd describe the yellowy versions seen in CH's book as 'orange/red' either. Very confusing. And then I don't think the advert in CH British Glass looks anything like the real life examples shown in terms of colour but some of the shapes are a match. 
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/A+cut+above+the+rest%3B+INTERIORS+Jo+Ind+looks+at+the+Black+Country's...-a062379647

According to this link re the maker, if my bowl is Agate Flambe it is actually by Thomas, Webb and Corbett, England as apparently the name change to Webb Corbett didn't happen until 1953.
 http://www.great-glass.co.uk/glass%20notes/markt-z.htm

btw, I've only just read the news about Bernard.  I was very sad to read that.  He helped me a lot especially with my Stuart peacock pieces/research.  This detail reminds me of him.  He'd have known exactly what the detail should be.
m

[orangeglass]

Hi,
Whoever made it - it's an absolutely stunning piece - I just love the mix of colours and bubbles!

I often look at the jamesdjulia site - they do auction some great glass but I have noticed in the past a few pieces incorrectly attributed 

[flying free]

Thanks I think it is one of my prettiest pieces but does need to be lit properly to show off.

m

[flying free]

I'm sure my bowl is Thomas Webb and Corbett Agate Flambe and this vase here has the same finish to the rim with the fine arriss.
The linked vase has the blue body in a very dark blue.
http://www.stylendesign.co.uk/classic/G136.html

[flying free]

The mark on the EPNS lid of my bowl is V&C in a diamond and then EPNS stamped in a rectangle with the numbers 844 stamped underneath.
The mark is for Vale and Charles Birmingham.


http://www.silvercollection.it/electroplatesilveTUVdue.html

They appear to have definitely been around in 1938 and 1945 in Hockley Street
http://www.silvermakersmarks.co.uk/Makers/Birmingham-V.html

m