Topic: 'Ice cut' vase with Harris signature........

[chopin-liszt]

That's helpful to know, thanks.

[Vitreo94]

Nemmie,


This signature on the link you provided is genuine.

It's been done with a diamond point etcher and is in every way a Harris signature of his time at Mdina. Lettering, spacing, style and fluidity are spot on.

[chopin-liszt]

Are you referring to the one on the large "ming" vase in the auction?
I didn't see it, I could only access the single first image, (Links are never as good as posting proper images directly, and the images vanish at a later date anyway.)

I would personally very much doubt a Michael Harris signature on such a piece. I'm not even sure these larger bottles were made while he was still there; they overlap so much with what was made at MDG I suspect they are post-Harris.
I haven't any evidence, that is just what I suspect from my 20 odd years' experience of collecting Mdina.

[Nemmie]

If you are referring to the Ming bottle the reason I posted it is I don't believe it to have been made whilst Michael Harris was at the glass works.

Which makes it highly unlikely to be his signature in my opinion.

I also disagree with you on the similarities, I see very little if any resemblance. It is a poor imitation to my eyes.

[glassobsessed]

Definitely yes to the big Ming bottle vase, one in the American importer George Briand's 1972 Mdina collection.

Signature is fine too.

[Nemmie]

I really don't think it is. And not just because of this bottle.

I am not sure how anyone can definitively say it is right but I certainly believe that it is a lot more likely to be wrong.

Buyer beware as I originally said.

[chopin-liszt]

I couldn't see the mark on the Ming bottle John, (my computer won't let me see anything other than the first image) but I did feel the piece was a bit late for Harris being there and didn't think it a likely contender for a signature, unless the person buying it originally, specifically asked for and got it done at the time.
It's a real shame the Briard catalogue is '72.
If it had been '71 or '73, we'd have been more sure. '72 leaves more room for doubt either way.
It's not an impossible notion that it could be right.

[Vitreo94]

I am indeed referring to the large Ming bottle vase.

How can anyone be absolutely sure, apart from the obvious designs, that Michael didn't make them while he was at Mdina? There are no records aside from photos of the stock shelves of what was made at all. Earth tones is considered post Harris, but he developed it while at Mdina, I have an experimental tricorn in that colorway with a broken pontil.

What im trying to say is that it's not beyond the realms of credulity that Michael made a piece like this while he was there, the signature is absolutely right. I've seen hundreds of Mdina pieces in the 19 years I've been a dealer and collector, and all manner of signatures both genuine and fake. This for me is a genuine signature, it's been done in a diamond point etcher, not vibro pen (though sometimes this was done by MH), it's fluid, has the correct form and style. If you look at Mark Hill's book on Michael Harris, the Mdina singatures shown on page 137, the ming bottle signature is almost identical in style and form.

I also saw in February at the National Glass fair in Birmingham a MH fish vase with a signature like this one done in diamond point and absolutely right. no question. Perhaps some of you saw it if you attended?

I agree that buyer beware is absolutely relevant, particulary more recently. The number of fake signatures I've seen this year alone is well into double digits. This Ming bottle however is not one of them, not to me, but each to their own.

[Vitreo94]

Is that also not a polished pontil base in the photos i see? That dates it to the Harris period for sure? It was used from 1969 and discontinued easily before 1972? So in reality that makes the piece absolutely of the period does it not?

[glassobsessed]

Not sure when they stopped with polished pontil marks entirely, it might turn out to be a bit later.

Those big Ming vases are thin on the ground, only seen a few in the flesh, perhaps they dropped the shape after Harris left which would help explain scarcity, anyone got one in another colour, or dated and therefore definitely post Harris? Harris left Malta in Summer 1972, at that point glass had been in production for little more than 3½ years.

Georges Briand was the American importer in the late 60s and early 70s, have to take this information at face value given it is in print in a couple of places. The photo of their 1972 Mdina collection has plenty of Harris era colours and shapes (I can't publish it - copyright would be a problem for the board) the chances are everything in that catalogue photo existed by late 1971 (which is interesting in itself given what is actually in there). Bottom right hand corner of that photo shows one of the big Ming vases, pattern number 7569.

So not really a surprise to find a large item made in the Harris years signed like that. No doubt or ambiguity as far as I am concerned.