Topic: Sowerby Glass 10th March 1879

[mhgcgolfclub]

Sowerby item with 3 small handles and decorated with 9 snails. Marked on the underside with trade mark and lozenge for 10th March 1879.

Not really sure what it is, but having looked in Jenny Thompson's Book English Pressed Glass I am wondering if it may be the lid of a jar of some kind . Although the snails do not seem to fit with the items listed.

Diameter 3.25"
Height 1.25"

Roy

[MHT]

Sowerby pattern book IX 1882, number 1377, page 7

http://e-britain.co.uk/victorian_pressed_glass/pattern_books.htm

Probably just a posy bowl for the French market 

[agincourt17]

Thank you for showing this piece, Roy – an uncommon item.

The lozenge for 10 March 1879 – Parcel 9 covers a bundle of 7 Sowerby design registrations – RDs 333167 to 333173.

Cottle (page 102) states that RD 333170 is for the pattern 1388 mustard and cover, and that RD 333171 is for the pattern 1393½  2-handled basket (though it is not unknown for Cottle to be in error with collating some Sowerby RD numbers with the pattern numbers within some bundles) . 

Between Jenny Thompson and Cottle, the other descriptions are:
RD 333167 as ‘plate and butter dish’
RD 333168 as ‘round sugar and cover’
RD 333169 as ‘round butter with two handles’
RD 333172 as ‘vase’
RD 333173 as ‘tea caddy’
so it looks as though the only design that may fit the description of Roy’s 3-handled ‘snail’ piece is the RD 333172 ‘vase’, though the definitive evidence would of course, would be the design representation (s).

Fred.

[mhgcgolfclub]

Thanks Mike and Fred

So looks to be complete, so may be a strange type of posy vase, Cannot remember seeing one before.

Roy

[Paul S.]

Fred's assumption is correct  -  the original factory pattern drawing at The National Archives for Rd. 333172 agrees with the outline shape of Roy's piece, and is described on the drawing simply as 'Vase'.            The snails don't get a look in - as you'd expect.
Perhaps small blooms were just floated on the water??

[nicola]

It's also featured in The Peacock and the Lions book which showed a selection of Sowerby Patterns from Book VIII and Book IX
I've seen a couple 'in real life' and they very sweet, delicate pieces - I wonder if they were meant as pin dishes. Or given that the Victorians were now using the trains and travelling to the coast - maybe even somewhere to place the shells they found!

[Paul S.]

Hi Nicola  -  The single word description on the original factory drawing would have been placed there by Sowerby themselves, so we're rather forced into accepting it was their intention that the piece should be used as a vase - although of course it has potential for other uses.            I can see the possibility as a pin dish, but not very practicable for the shells - this piece would hold very few, and I'm sure they would have been lost long before getting home.
If you look closely at Dyce's 'Pegwell Bay' from around 1860, you will see that the women certainly appear to be holding small hoop-handled wicker baskets into which they put those shells they presumably wish to keep.

Sowerby seemed to have produced some odd shaped pieces around this period - quite a few are not what you might expect from this period of the C19.

[agincourt17]

Thank you for pointing it out, Nicola - I've found it on page 20.

I must say that I find Sheilagh Murray's book is rather outdated now, but it still comes up trumps every now and then.

Fred.

[nicola]

Paul - I completely understand, although from what I remember often the descriptions of the pieces were quite fluid - butter dishes that are so large that it's unlikely that a family who would buy pressed glass would have that amount of butter available to them, vases described as celery vases etc It's less than 1 cm deep so the flowers wouldn't last very long!

Fred - have you read the 'Honey's Book on Victorian Pressed Glass' by Millicent Honeywood? It's a lovely little publication which has some interesting photos. Like the Sheilagh Murray book, sometimes you come across a few gems even if the research is a little shaky!

[agincourt17]

I hadn't come across the book before, Nicola.

It seems to have been privately published in 1985 in an edition of 1250 copies; 16-page comb-bound booklet with 28 b&w illustrations and 14 in colour.

Was it published in Britain, and does it deal predominantly with British pressed glass, please?

Fred.