Topic: Mdina Textured Bottle signed 'Mdina' by Michael Harris?

[Vitreo94]

Interesting! An oddity that this one has a polished pontil (so Harris era) and is signed by Marie with a squiggle! The inclusion of the word Malta is something I only associated with MH signatures, clearly an export piece I imagine.

[glassobsessed]

You are reading too much into the polished pontil mark.

[Vitreo94]

How so? It was introduced with the arrival of the Boffos and discontinued around or before 72. That's all I'm taking from it.

[glassobsessed]

Most bases were thick and heavy, any pontil mark was removed by grinding and polishing the whole base. When a base is much thinner (as in your vase) just grinding and polishing the pontil mark out leaves a more substantial and balanced base than grinding the whole thing down. It is a technique used when it is required, not simply on a whim. To imagine they abandoned the process completely at a particular point in time to me makes absolutely no sense. If it was required it would have been used, methods no doubt were adapted to make production quicker and more cost effective but a vase such as yours would not have been thrown away or sold cheaply because "we no longer grind out pontil marks".

Ming is post Harris, your vase and signature are post Harris, there is always the desire for an item to be what we want it to be, that tends to cloud judgement.

[Vitreo94]

Hi John,

You are quite right, I have misremebered what I read in Mark Hill's book, apologies. Should have been obvious from the Ming pattern really! Here is a quote from page 132 regarding polished pontils on pieces: 'It was usually found on mould blown cylindircal vases, textured bottles and vases and attenuated bottles'. I would assume that meant regardless of year of production?

It does also state the finish was started in late 1969 and ended soon after:  'As it would have been more time consuming to create - it was soon discontinued' (this is where I misremembered). I would hazard a guess that some items other then the aforementioned during this period would have been finished in this way also? But afterwards restricted to those Mark mentions?

Sue - So in answer to your question Sue, yes it is indeed mould blown! Whether or not the large stoppered mould would have been used to make them I have no idea.

[chopin-liszt]

I just climbed up a ladder to check the bottom of my big Rosenthal cylinder, it has a broken pontil mark underneath.
This is an image of it on display, with two "sweetie jars". The height of the cylinder is roughly the same height as up to the bulge on the jars, which you will notice are not the same. One is a proper muffin-top curve, the other a bit more "slopey".

I wasn't able to check the bottoms of the jars, I'll need assistance for that, and I cannot find a tape measure.

[glassobsessed]

Just had a quick look at all the bases in my collection, it never hurts to refresh your memory! The textured bottles have ground out pontil marks (I have had several with no pontil mark at all) and three of the Inside Out vases have ground and polished marks too, that was a bit of a surprise for some reason. The one item I have that is an exception is the following blue vase, there is a disc of glass applied to the base, perhaps to thicken and strengthen and that has quite a wide polished pontil mark (like one of the IOs).

As I understand it, both Tortoiseshell and Ming were developed by Harris before he left Mdina so there may well be a very few examples that do date from his time at Mdina, how to tell them apart from those that came later without a suitable signature though is beyond me, assuming some actually exist...

John

[Vitreo94]

I would guess that the pontils were only finished in that way if it was deemed necessary then? Though I am slightly confused about the process being stopped a while after 1969 but it still appearing on seemingly much later pieces.

That is a bizarre finish, can't say I've ever seen it before, but as you say, likely to strenghten the base. Cracking vase though.

Can I ask how you know they were being developed before he left? Not questioning the legitimacy of it, just interested in where these snippets of info come from! If that is the case then perhaps this is one of those, though having said that I would have thought such a piece he would have perhaps signed or left blank at least. With Marie's signature being comparitively wider than Harris's Mdina signature on the textured bottle (so not diamond point I would guess), I would agree with what you said about it being post Harris. Its enormity is unusual though.

[chopin-liszt]

Well, "Earthtones" got renamed into Tortoiseshell at IoWSG, where MH was just continuing with the things he'd been experimented with at Mdina, so there is actual physical evidence,  and it's in Mark's book about Ming.

We need to remember that studio glass was new, and basically "run by a bunch of disorganised hippies", nothing was standardised or catalogued.

Michael Harris just wanted to see what he could get glass to do. Once something was made, he lost interest and was on to the next thing. He didn't like signing stuff, he did like making glass.
They were short-staffed, they had trouble keeping up with making enough stock for the shop shelves, it sold so quickly.

The sort of finish on John's pot was used by the Ysarts in both Monart and Vasart with the strengthening extra blob, many, many years before Mdina.

[Vitreo94]

I was aware of the tortoiseshell as I believe there was an experimental one ID'd on here not long ago? That and I have an attenuated bottle in that colourway by IOWSG and the similarities are undeniable.

It was the Ming I was surprised by, I shall have to look closer for that info, I feel as though I've read it a thousand times and still find out new things when I dip into it every so often! Yes the way it was run in the early days makes it so much more exciting to collect and sell for me, you never know what you might find, possibilities are endless!

Yes from what I gather he liked the glass to speak for itself rather than sign it and that it was a group effort not just him.

So just to clarify and make sure I understand, we are saying this vase is signed by Marie and is a post Harris piece?

A thought did cross my mind about this possibly being a commissioned piece as it doesn't seem like the size that is more commonly seen? Hence the fully signed nature of it likely an export? Just a thought.