Topic: Beautiful but unknown - uranium green painted vase with N or Z on base

[djcook]

First let me start by saying that I am excited about being a part of this forum. My wife is the primary collector but she's really got me interested in collecting glass.

We were out yesterday antiquing and found this beautiful base. It's height is 8", the is mouth 3.25", the base is 3" and it's marked with an N or Z on bottom.

Can anyone identify? We have search books and online resources but haven't found one quite like it. As always any and all help is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance for your time.

[chopin-liszt]

Hello and welcome. 
We're delighted you've found us. However, I think it is unlikely we'll find a maker for this, it is probably Bohemian from some time between the '30s and '60s, although I'm no expert on this sort of thing.
I can see it contains Uranium, thanks for that pic.
But there is an inkling of hope. You say there is a mark on the bottom.
Can we please see it?
We like looking at bottoms here.   
Even if there's "nothing there", we can often tell a lot from the sort of "nothing" it is.

If the mark is engraved onto the bottom, it can be easier to photograph with a little talc rubbed over it with your thumb.
Thank-you for posting lovely clear images, all beautifully resized, directly to the board. It really helps.

[djcook]

Sue,

Thank you for the reply. Attached are a few pictures of the bottom. There appears to be either a Z or and N, we just can't tell.

[idiganthro]

Sue,
Here's an ignorant question... do you mean 19th century (1830-1860) or 20th (1930-1960).  Any links to how to tell the difference?
Please and thank you!
Annette

[chopin-liszt]

20th century - sorry! 1900s.
No links, sorry, but glass a century older is quite different. There are a lot of these sorts of painted, mould blown vases around, so many that we (currently) have no clue about makers.
I think Uranium was first used in glass until the 1850s-ish, invented in Germany, two colours Annageld (gold) and Annagrun (green) were made, named after the gentlman's lady wife.

 
It's hard to tell much from the pic of the mark on the base. Sometimes marks can look better on piece if taken at an angle across them, so that the ambient light picks them out from the background.
Do you think it is a deliberate mark, or just something that might have got there by accident?

(I don't know about you, but I can't tell what I'm photographing half the time - I can't focus on what I'm looking at and the camera screen at the same time, I don't have glasses that will allow both.
It was much easier with old cameras when you had to peer through a tiny eyehole, you could see a big image there.)

[Anne]

Welcome to the board. The mark on the base that looks like a letter N or Z is, I suspect, probably the decorator's mark rather than a maker's mark.

[idiganthro]

Here is a better picture of the mark on the base.

[glassobsessed]

Looks Victorian to my eye, I suspect it is a bit older than Sue' estimate, maybe late 1800s.

John

[idiganthro]

That is what I thought, and hoped. There are similar, though not exact, vases in Ruth Webb's Victorian Glass Handbook. I'm certainly no expert though!

[Lustrousstone]

These were made over quite a long period covering the end of the 19th C and the beginning of the 20th centuries, so it's nigh on impossible to pin them down