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Author Topic: BACCARAT- Blue French Opaline Glass Vase - Molded  (Read 7361 times)

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Offline flying free

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Re: BACCARAT- Blue French Opaline Glass Vase - Molded
« Reply #10 on: October 26, 2017, 08:51:31 AM »
Paul, sorry I have to disagree with some of your comments, those I have underlined   :-[:

You said:

'Opaline/opalin is very much one of those areas of problematic definition, and I would still maintain that as already repeated by flying free, this material isn't cased, neither is it opaque, and it should show sufficient translucence such that the sunset glow is apparent.   

Unfortunately, I'm not aware of the original Italian or French recipe for the batch make-up, so can't prove that they were either different or identical  -  although I suspect they weren't the same  -  the inclusion of ashes of calcined bones as the opacifier, seems to have been essential.

Colour wise, opaline can be almost anything from a pearly white through most pale colours and on to deep blue and even black (apparently).

Allegedly the best pieces came from Baccarat (French) mid C19 and are possibly the closest in appearance to what we think of as standard opaline
.'




1) I didn't say that Opaline/opalin ' should show sufficient translucence such that the sunset glow is apparent.'   
I don't agree with that definition.  Some pieces will have been opacified using ingredients/methods which opacify the glass but do not cause a red glow and will still be opaline glass.


2) Neither do I agree that:
'... the inclusion of ashes of calcined bones as the opacifier, seems to have been essential. ' 
I don't agree this is essential as you will see by reading the reference given here and given on the Opaline glass thread.


3) And I think this is subjective:
'Allegedly the best pieces came from Baccarat (French) mid C19 and are possibly the closest in appearance to what we think of as standard opaline.'

I have a very early piece of c1820-1830 French opaline glass in bleu lavande (probably from Montcenis or Choisy-Le-Roi).  It is stunning, very beautiful, but equally I have a piece of Bohemian glass from c.1840 that is also stunning and very beautiful as well ... in my opinion.

And I believe either piece, given the definitions and recipes on the links on the 'Opaline Glass' topic thread I started, to be opaline glass.
And just an added complication, the Bohemian piece was cased and cut back, opaline on opaline  :o







Re:  The perfume bottles

 - blue is a very difficult colour to assess on screen.  I don't think those would be classed as turquoise. I think (but don't know) that they might be later in the 19th, maybe last third 19th?
m




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Offline Anne Tique

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Re: BACCARAT- Blue French Opaline Glass Vase - Molded
« Reply #11 on: October 26, 2017, 12:26:10 PM »
There's always 'Opaline de Foire' ... lesser quality, more cost effective, mass produced and often confused....jfwiw.

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Offline flying free

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Re: BACCARAT- Blue French Opaline Glass Vase - Molded
« Reply #12 on: October 26, 2017, 12:36:37 PM »
This is a link to the 'opaline glass' thread just for further information:

http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,65797.msg367997.html#msg367997

The Roland Dufrenne site is now down completely so no access to his wonderful photographs of gorge de pigeon opaline.


I recommend two lovely books (I don't have the Opalines book that Paul mentioned):

La Cristallerie de Clichy - Roland Dufrenne, Jean Maes et Bernard Maes, 2005.

Baguiers et Verres A Boire due XIXeme siecle - Leon Darnis  (this is really good - in French so I find it difficult  :-[  , but great pictures, huge collection of French opalines, really amazing pieces and some great informative and technical information (even though I had to use google to translate) .

oh and I believe opaline glass can be cased and still called opaline - ref: La Cristallerie de Clichy, pp 263  ;)

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Offline Paul S.

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Re: BACCARAT- Blue French Opaline Glass Vase - Molded
« Reply #13 on: October 26, 2017, 02:17:02 PM »
then I apologise m for misquoting you :-*

Anne  -  thanks for advising re the Opaline de Foire, although regret I can't recall seeing a picture of this one.

Firstly, I admit to knowing less than either of these two ladies about what may or may not be called opaline, but for me the blindingly obvious problem here is that we seem to be widening the scope of what may legitimately be described as opaline  -  and there is the real danger now that we have strayed from the recipe devised by Baccarat c. 1820s - upon which the word opalin rests.

The parameters we are setting provide for just about every kind of translucent/opaque coloured glass, cased or otherwise, with or without a glow, to be called opaline, and without chemical testing how do we know if a given piece does or doesn't contain ashes of calcined bones as the opacifier.
How do we maintain a standard of description with which to say something is opaline, or it is not - it seems impossible from our lack of success so far, and the more I read here the more it appears that just about anything and everything can in some way be classed as opaline.
An orange is an orange and an apple is an apple because of specific properties they possess - definable and recognizable, and an apple will never be an orange and vice versa.

Of course we know what gorge de pigeion and bulle de savon look like, so really don't need any more pix of those high end pieces. ;D

there is no problem with calling any piece of coloured glass opaline if that's what really turns us on, but to spend more time discussing something where we know we cannot find an agreed concise descriptive terminology, does seem like a dead end, and we'd be better of talking about other issues.          Remember the last time we discussed opaline it seem to go on for ever, and we didn't reach a conclusion then. :)

Regret I can't put a date on the scents  -  although seem to recall that turquoise was one of the colours I'd seen in relation to opaline.

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Offline flying free

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Re: BACCARAT- Blue French Opaline Glass Vase - Molded
« Reply #14 on: October 26, 2017, 06:03:17 PM »
I wish I'd studied French at school.

Or knew a way of translating automatically from a photograph of a page of writing  ;D


m

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Offline Anne Tique

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Re: BACCARAT- Blue French Opaline Glass Vase - Molded
« Reply #15 on: October 26, 2017, 06:20:48 PM »
I wish I'd studied French at school.

Or knew a way of translating automatically from a photograph of a page of writing  ;D


m

 ;D
http://www.trano.com/electronic-scanner-translator-talking-dictionary-Super-Pen.html

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Offline flying free

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Re: BACCARAT- Blue French Opaline Glass Vase - Molded
« Reply #16 on: October 26, 2017, 06:38:09 PM »
Anne it says out of stock - aah     :'(   but I shall investigate!

ok, perhaps you could help me here please?

Topic -  the possible debasement of the word 'opalin' .. or not?

This book was issued in 1845 from Sevres:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Z0BJAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA363&lpg=PA363&dq=le+verre+blanc+dit+%27opalin%27&source=bl&ots=M2K-zZZA08&sig=uxhb0-uOt7qtX02GmB-kIewUwgw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjn4vHM7Y7XAhWD1RoKHaVaBLQQ6AEIPTAI#v=onepage&q=opalin&f=false



Page  361 to 365 shows a number of items described as 'opalin'.
Only one as far as I can see, seems to relate to Baccarat production - a white goblet shown at an exhibition in 1823 listed on page 360.

Variously on succeeding pages, there are items from other factories described as 'opalin'.



So ... I think it's possible the word 'opalin' has been re-spelled to morph into the word opaline.

Hence, opaline is not a debasement of the Baccarat 'opalin' range.  It is a reformatted spelling of the word 'opalin' which seems to have been used at least since this book in 1845, to describe a number of items that do not come from Baccarat.

Possibly used to describe items that are glass mixed in the batch and are hand blown and are neither transparent nor opaque but are translucent.


So possibly not a recent derivation.

m



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Offline Paul S.

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Re: BACCARAT- Blue French Opaline Glass Vase - Molded
« Reply #17 on: October 26, 2017, 07:10:17 PM »
I'm still waiting for that stained glass window .......   ;D ;)

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Offline flying free

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Re: BACCARAT- Blue French Opaline Glass Vase - Molded
« Reply #18 on: October 26, 2017, 07:25:35 PM »
?  - Either I've not read that properly ... 
or I've missed the joke (always likely  ;D) or misunderstood something I've posted  :o (more than likely)

m

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Offline flying free

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Re: BACCARAT- Blue French Opaline Glass Vase - Molded
« Reply #19 on: October 26, 2017, 07:58:28 PM »
this is in Les Arts Decoratifs online search site:

listed as:-

Bohemian - end of the 18th century and 'verre blanc opalin'.

http://collections.lesartsdecoratifs.fr/gobelet-64

and another (there are more)
http://collections.lesartsdecoratifs.fr/gobelet-56

Looks like they use the word opalin to refer to glass other than Baccarat made, and also to glass made before early 19th century.





And here is page 263 of La Cristallerie de Clichy showing the cased opaline glass  :o

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=KEYMY4_ytuUC&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=roland+dufrenne&source=bl&ots=pVmRmiLN4n&sig=rgugDP-kRcjANw70B1UdtzcWGuE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjcjLmfio_XAhUDuRoKHRJ8ACk4FBDoAQguMAE#v=onepage&q=opaline&f=false
m

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