Topic: Mysterious inkwell - aventurine with green prunts and trails

[Marc B.]

Hello,
can anybody help to identify this inkwell.
Thank you very much,
Marc.

[flying free]

Hello and welcome to the board.
You will need to resize your photographs to 600x 400 pixels in order for them to enlarge so we can see the details

thank you
m

[Marc B.]

Here is the picture with the sizes of 600x450. I hope it's ok.

[flying free]

Lovely and perfect resizing of photo.
Could you post a clear photograph of the base as well.

It looks to me as though it is aventurine glass with green glass applied prunts and trails.
Hopefully someone will be along who can help with a maker.

m

[Marc B.]

Here is the bottom of the piece.

Thank you.

[Paul S.]

sorry can't help remotely with this piece, but...............   just to say that virtually all inkwells I see are made of clear glass, and those few that are blue, green, amber or whatever, have some transparency to the point where the ink level can still be seen.     So this example is very unusual in that sense, but I agree it does have the shape and appearance of an inkwell.        Does this one show any degree of transparency, so that the ink can be seen??

P.S.     Kew tomorrow

[Marc B.]

Thanks a lot Paul.
The inkwell is competely untransparent and has some traces of ink around the neck.
Regards, Marc.

[Paul S.]

from a practical point of view, I guess it's not essential that the level can be seen from the outside - I remember our school desk ink wells were ceramic, so couldn't see into those.
The small prunts and dripping trails of green - might suggest art nouveau style  -  whether original i.e. somewhere around the period 1880 - 1910 ish - or from a later date and simply copying the earlier period, is open to question.          Do we know the extent of wear, if any? - is there deeply ingrained dirt etc. within the prunts, for example, to indicate this might not have been made as a copy in the mid C20?
Does anyone think this might look more arts & crafts at all?

There certainly are zillions of ink wells around - and sorry to say, but I doubt you'll find a maker for this one.        If pushed, my thoughts would be either eastern Europe or perhaps French - but that just idle guesswork

[flying free]

It might be good to ask the mods to change the title to aventurine ink well or bottle with green prunts & trails.
That way someone might spot it more easily and look in.
There were many non transparent inkwells in the art nouveau era.
My first thoughts on the aventurine use would be Italian but perhaps also Bohemian?
Sorry, I really don't recognise the shape or the design other than the above thoughts.

m

[glassobsessed]

I thought Bohemian too, both the form and there is something about the aventurine that pushes me away from Murano, not sure what it is, sometimes I think the Bohemian aventurine somehow looks a bit 'denser'. Can't think of many inkwells from Murano either and the combination of green with aventurine seems less typical there too.

John