Topic: Percival,Yates & Vickers creamer ca. 1865

[cagney]

Seems to correspond convincingly to design registered in august 1865. Jenny Thompsons book "The Identification of English Pressed Glass" page 47. Butter dish pictured plate 34 page 68.

What look like fissures in the glass body are actually the mold lines [ 3 of them ] spitting apart. I assume during working/reheating of the spout. Frosted appearance produced by acid fumes?. Exceedingly nice treatment of an otherwise plain pressed piece. Love the crimping on the applied handle. Ground and polished foot ring.

Bought in USA via eBay many, many years ago.

[Paul S.]

hmmm -  the down side Cagney looks to be that on the original factory drawings - in Kew - for both 183352/3, there are large eight pointed stars around the midriff  - as shown on the drawing in Thompson, so  ...................   there is doubt.         Otherwise, I'd agree the shape and overall design appears to be identical  -  though I've no idea of the actual size.
Do we have any images of this Registration on the Board's pressed archive?          I'll post the Kew pix for both Registrations later - assuming Fred doesn't tell me we already have them

What is the height of this cream jug?

[cagney]

Yes, 183353 would allude to a known shape they produced. 189121/2, I think is probably the actual pattern. Height to top of handle is 12.5 cm.

[Paul S.]

having now looked at TNA pix for 189121/2, there are notable design similarities with 183352/3, but I'm no wiser unfortunately, as to why the factory drawings for the earlier pair, together with Jenny Thompson's drawing, show those large stars, and your creamer doesn't (neither do stars appear on 189121/2).            This doesn't mean your piece is unrelated and it has such a close similarity in other respects, but I'm no expert on this factory  -  perhaps Neil can give an opinion
Jenny Thompson was obviously keen to point out in her book that the sugar and creamer were adorned with "large star pattern grouped round middle", for 183352/3.

Drawings for both 189121/2 show a lidded butter dish with an impressed star to the base, and a raised cogwheel pattern in relief around the rims of both the base and lid, and on the finial of the butter lid  -  but as I say no stars.        This cogwheel pattern is common to all four Registrations - the earlier pair date to January of 1865, and the later pair to August of the same year.
The earlier pair of Registrations are for a sugar and creamer, and my opinion is that the later pair of Regs. refer the lid and base, separately, of the butter dish only.

Will post pix shortly  -  am still mystified as the absence of stars on your creamer, assuming it is related to Reg. 183353.

[Paul S.]

hope the attached pix might help  ...............  did have a look on the Board's archive, but seems we didn't have pix of these four Registrations.

[cagney]

Curious, U.K. design registrations for individual pieces ? not any/all pieces in pattern?

USA design patent, etc. applies to that design in that medium. By 1865 American manufacturers marketing 4 piece "table sets"i.e. sugar, creamer,butter,spoonholder. USA knowledge bias at work I guess.

[neilh]

I would say this is a Percival Vickers jug, minus the stars decoration. I think this needs to be seen in the context of the frosting mania of the 1860s. There are numerous examples now of pieces from this decade - both cut and pressed -  being produced of frosted blanks, with custom decoration added later.

In 1868 Molineaux Webb registered some whole frosted sets. There are some examples of these blanks with custom designs added on this page:

https://sites.google.com/site/molwebbhistory/Home/registered-designs/molineaux-webb-designs-by-date/molineaux-webb-1868

The variations of design 215734 are quite striking - you would never guess they were from the same registration from a casual glance. Percival Vickers also produced a whole frosted set around this time - The Milan, though it had a different shape of jug to cagneys.

I would suggest cagneys piece shows early experimentation with how to produce and market these frosted pieces. I'm guessing they produced this blank first and later registered the design after producing a star decorated version. Or perhaps both were produced at the same time. It is known that most frosted pieces were available unfrosted. This is suggesting that frosted pieces were available with and without pattern, perhaps briefly during the 1860s.

[Paul S.]

many thanks Neil  -  so would appear cagney does have a bona fide piece of PYV from Reg. 183353 conforming to the creamer shape, but without the stars.         For future researchers, perhaps Fred might wish to add cagney's pix to the Board's archive linked to this Reg., and the Mods. might wish to incorporate the Registration No. into the subject heading now the matter is resolved.

[agincourt17]

Thank you for showing the design representations, Paul. I hadn't seen those for RD's 183352 and 183353 before.

Will add Cagney's pics to the GMB RD database in due course, including a link back to this GMB topic thread.

Fred.

[agincourt17]

From Neil's 'Manchester Glass' site:

The Glass Encyclopedia has an example here
http://www.glassencyclopedia.com/percivalvickersglass.html
(pic on top left) which they describe as a variant of this pattern.  The shape of the jug is indeed identical but the pattern on the body is completely different - Greek Key instead of stars.

Fred