Topic: Glass tumbler 1646

[Paul S.]

I'd agree.............   lots of pieces commemorating Victoria or other C19 luminaries in some way or other, but this subject very unusual.

[chopin-liszt]

It's not as if folk were not making "fakes" in the past. 
Anything to do with the Jacobites was considered valuable, even in 1880.

[Paul S.]

Some pix from TNA at Kew which we can now legitimately keep for the Board's archive - although as we were already aware the originals were sepia photos, and disappointing end result as these things don't make good subjects for re-photographing.

Having now seen the original pix, I discovered some faint pencil instructions written at the top (possibly just visible in my picture) but almost certainly unreadable now.        The wording says....   "Crown, letters and date to be removed"   ........  and this is typical of the type of wording used, by a Registrant to the Board of trade, when they wished to indicate what part of the image was not to form part of the Registration   ..........   thus implying in this instance that the cut decoration was to be ignored.
This situation brings us back to the comments within the op's original link - stating that this 'Registration was for the shape only'  -  which is fine, but makes for a bit of a dilemma insofar as there are two shapes involved.             So having stuck my neck out earlier on and commented that  ........  as there are two separate shapes (more if you count the tumblers), then the protection had to be for the engraving since you almost certainly can't protect more than one shape with one Registration only   .............   I'm now confused, since the original pix appear to state that the decoration was to be 'removed' from this Registration.

Enlightenment please from someone.

P.S.     this Rd. No. omitted from Ray Slack's list of Registrations, presumably as it didn't qualify as pressed glass.

[ju1i3]

I was wondering if there was a specific time for these things but I guess this vase is 1880's?, well after the tumbler.

[Paul S.]

gosh, what a gay looking Cavalier..........    Assume from your caption name Julie that your bulb vase is British in origin.
In fact the date of Registration of the op's item I think was 1887, so contemporary with that of your vase, so unsure of the meaning of your comments.
An historic commemorative item such as this was very unusual for the second half C19  -  most items of a commemorative nature -  and there were many of them - related to contemporary C19 British subjects and royalty.
Does the image on your vase have some Dutch connection do you think - re the bulbs etc., it reminds me of the famous picture 'When Did You Last See Your Farther' or perhaps 'The Laughing Cavalier'  -  or perhaps he's advertising 'Hamlet Cigars'

[nigelbenson]

If it is the shape that is registered then it is quite possible for it to be used to commemorate the 250th anniversary - 1646 -1896 

The shape conforms to the Arts & Crafts taste IMHO, so it would have been produced for a while, and serves as a good canvas for the engraving.

Cheers, Nigel

[Paul S.]

I notice your use of the word 'if', Nigel               Am sure it goes without saying that not easy now to find a source of definitive confirmation as to what the Registrant's intention was, and the matter at least to me, despite various other comments to the contrary, lacks certainty as to whether it was the shape or engraving that was being Registered............   but then perhaps I'm suffering from muddled thinking.

Originally, I dismissed the possibility that it was the shape since as you can see there are at least three pieces, all of different shape  -  two jugs and a tumbler - and my experience with Board of Trade Registrations suggest it's an unlikely situation for one Reg. No. to represent such diversity of shape.
However, as you've no doubt seen from my earlier comments, the original factory drawing carries the instruction that the details of the engraving are 'to be removed'  -  in other words they were not intended to form part of the Registration - so on the face of it this may be a unique Registration insofar as it protects multiple shapes.   

Your suggestion that the engraving implies a 250th anniversary I'm sure is accurate, and the shape of the tumbler is definitely reminiscent of Philip Webb's designs c. 1860s for Morris, Marshall Faulkner & Co. (made by Powell & Sons)  -  it's those bulges and the clear glass element.     The other two shapes are stylistically unrelated to Arts & Crafts, and appear to be designs from periods earlier than second half C19.

Edited to add...........    without thinking too much I had rather lumped P/Webb's designs for Morris/Powell etc., as A. & C.  ......   this however, is probably an error on my part, and more correctly they are products of what is described as the 'Aesthetic Movement'  -  as style similar to A. & C. in it's simplicity but something that came as the last big fashion of the C19.      The 1860s are too early for A. & C.

[ju1i3]

Sorry, I don't know why, I was thinking the tumbler was 1855, and I didn't go back and check the OP. Yes, that makes more sense for them to be contemporary, if I'm thinking they had an interest in Charles I at that time. I think he's the one on the Britannia Ware S Hancock & Sons vase. I use it for hyacinths although I don't think it was made for that but I put a hyacinth bulb in anything and everything.

[nigelbenson]

A well used vase there! 

Thank you for your very interesting thoughts on the registration Paul

I think the glass designs at the merging of the Aesthetic Movement with the Arts & Crafts Movement can be very difficult to call, just as the merging of British Art Nouveau and A&C  glass can be.

Whilst much is obviously of the style meant, sometimes the item could be either. I think this is a result of the British way of making things subtle (some might say something more derogatory!). I would suggest that this has often been the result of commercial needs to appeal to customers who have a very conservative attitude toward style. Certainly this is true of the time when cut glass changed - embodied by the exhibition held in 1934. Later I know, but a very good illustration of the point I'm trying to make, since the buyers were too scared to stock those modern designs at that time. I'm sure this could have been true in the late nineteenth century too.

I would say the Philip Webb designs for glass are the beginning of the British A&C glass era. Don't forget that the first glass he designed was for Red House, the house he designed for Morris, and that is A&C.

Mind you have made me think about P Webb's designs for glass Paul. For instance, is this glass with applied 'jewels' Aesthetic Movement or A&C??

http://collection.cmoa.org/CollectionDetail.aspx?item=1003838&retPrompt=Back+to+Results&retUrl=CollectionSearch.aspx%3fsrch%3dWebb%252c%2bPhilip

Or both??

Cheers, Nigel

[Paul S.]

Julie - I can understand the confusion as to date of the op's Registration and your vase  -  in fact I think the date is shown only once, and that's as part of the caption to my pix from Kew, so don't think you're to blame for missing that.           I like your vase, but then I'm a big fan of blue and white.           Difficult to be specific perhaps as to whether the guy on your vase was intended to be Charles I - always possible the image is simply a stylized pic. of Dutch art/Cavaliers/C17 costume, and as for the theme of the engraving on the op's tumbler, my opinion is that as a subject matter it seems to have been used very rarely in the U.K. around that time  .........   I'm not aware of other pieces showing reference to this subject. 

It's a shame Nigel that the glass in your link is in Pittsburgh - and I believe there others very similar in the Museum Bellerive, Zurich - but that's glass for you............   always somewhere other than where you'd like it to be.
I think if we started to debate the difference between aesthetic and A. & C. we'd be here all night.      But ever one to rise to the occasion, here is my take on recognized art movements from second half C19:-

Somewhere around 1860, Morris seems to have been extolling the virtues of C17 Venetian fine glass but already senses that the stuff is too thin and impractical and suggested it should be made thicker and less dainty, but must be "done by hand, and not by machine" - so this is possibly what drives him to ask Webb to create those 1860 designs for the Red House that you mention, although they in turn appear to be equally thin.             Webb made a large service of pieces for personal use at the Red House, the style of which was described as -" 'medieval' in spirit, and somewhat reminiscent of German drinking glasses of the C16" - so here we see glasses designed by Webb - not Morris - although coincidentally they reflect what was to become Morris' personal signature theme of designs of pre-industrial manufacture  -  "have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful etc. etc......"
Despite the fact that the date of 1860 is relevant here  -  relevant because various sources quote this date as the beginnings of the 'aesthetic movement'  -  neither these Venetian or medieval glasses owe anything to the 'aesthetic' movement - which (not my interpretation) is described as 'decoration with a strong Japanese influence' (think Whistler), and I see nothing remotely Japanese in any of the Venetian or medieval designs from Powell or Webb around that date.      The aesthetic movement seems to have been fairly short-lived  -  fading away somewhere around 1880.           
In fact I'd go as far as to say that my opinion is that the features that go to make up what is described as 'aesthetic' style, do not in the main lend themselves to glass   ..........aside from pressed glass, styles from that period are either Venetian in appearance (see a lot of the early Powell designs), or a limited amount of medieval patterns as designed by Webb for Morris c. 1860.         But like so many cliché words, 'aesthetic' has probably been over-done and mis-applied frequently, although it does look to have much bona fide use in other art forms - possibly ceramics mostly.
However, it does lead on to the next big artistic fashion, which was art nouveau - and this continued into the C20 with something of a break before art deco kicks in -  both nouveau and deco were artistic shapes/styles that lent themselves far more to being expressed in glass than did the aesthetic or A. & C. movements - I don't include Venetian as a movement. 

In the U.K. the introduction of the A. & C. style is attributed to Morris, with his misguided idea that people wanted a flavour of knights on horseback and maidens with tall pointy hats with a little silk flowing from the top, and then they'd be happy all day long toiling at their hand-crafted labours and go home in the evening and read 'News From Nowhere', poetry and dream of John Ball.......    how wrong can you be!
Don't know that it's easy to put a date on the beginnings of A. & C., but it seems to have been very apparent in furniture around the early 1880s, but again glass items difficult to pinpoint.     The criteria for the style of this fashion might be simplicity, functional design and robustness  -  so do the designs of Dresser qualify, and how about the 'leather bottle' flasks or 'Clutha' pieces?          Gives you an idea of how some of these movements didn't lend themselves to glass when you look for example at the paucity of material shown in CH books, but as I say masses of examples in furniture, ceramics etc.

I don't think the Glasgow School was a movement that influenced glass fashion  -  painting, silverwork and furniture but not glass.

Nigel  -  hope this might help