Topic: Please help = Bohemian Glass ID - Cased red cut to clear

[kimo]

I have a set of 6 glasses that are in the Bohemian glass style and that I assume to have been made in that region.  They are finely made with good details and are red cased cut to clear.  Below are some photos. 

Each one measures just less than 4 inches tall or 9.8 cm.  The diameter across the top is just under 3 inches or 7.5 cm.  the diameter across the base is just under 2.5 inches or 6 cm.  The bottoms are ground flat, then reground in the center to create a very slight depression that is 4.3 cm in diameter so that the glass sits on a rim that is 0.6 cm wide all around the edge of the bottom.  Also, the top narrow rim is ground flat.

The glass is red cased cut to clear.  There are 10 flat panels cut into the lower 2/3s of each glass with a narrow strip of red glass that was left behind to separate each cut panel.  The upper 1/3 of each glass was left in its red glass casing but has a finely made grape, vine, and leaf pattern cut into it through to the clear glass underneath.  Each cluster of grapes is made of 15 to 17 tiny individually wheel cut grapes while the grape vine and leaves are made by what appears to be either acid etching or sandblasting the design.  Inside of each leaf there is additional detail of the veining of the leaf.  They weigh 8.5 ounces or 244 grams each.

There are no signatures or any other markings that I can find on them which surprises me a bit given the attention to detail and quality of cutting these have.  I imagine that they once had paper labels that are now long gone.

I understand that Bohemian glass can be difficult to identify and that it has been made for well over 100 years.  For all I know, given the great condition these are in these could have been made in the past couple of decades, or they could be much older.  I would appreciate hearing from anyone as to the possible maker of these and their possible age.  I would welcome informed guesses as well as positive IDs, or to just be advised that there is no way to date or ID this type of glass.  At this point I am just clueless.

Thank you very much for whatever you might be able to tell me.
 

[Ivo]

Nice set of glasses. Technically speaking these are not cased but flashed, a process developed in the 1830s involving dipping the piece in a very runny ruby enamel. This leaves it with a very thin layer of colour which is easy to etch or engrave through. Casing is folding a second colour of glass around the base colour, and results in a much thicker layer.

The vine is of course a recurring decorative theme and was used from the earliest date until the present day. Here a combination of (stencil) etching and cutting was used.

The first to develop this technique was Egermann, a company in existence still - but the year it was released the first competitors started using it too. There is no telling whodunnit, and as per time you can estimate second half of the 19th century, and then rather towardsthe end of it.

You see a lot of rhine trip souvenir glass in this technique, and they all seem to date from the 1880s to the 1910s.

[kimo]

Thanks, Ivo.  And thanks for helping me to understand the difference between cased and flashed glass.  I think you are correct that these are flashed with Ruby glass, though the flashing seems to be a bit heavier than some of the inexpensive souvenir items I have seen with people's names and dates scratched through the red to the clear.