Topic: wine glass w elaborate stem,

[kerstinfroberg]

greenish (uranium?), with pantographed and etched border: http://precisensan.com/antikforum/showthread.php?38363-Pantograferade-vridet-ben-uranglas-optikbl%E5st-cuppa-sp%E4nnande-vinglas!

I am the etced-glass nerd from Sweden - the above glass was found at a Swe flea market. I saw the posting the other day, and noted that the etching patters is one we have at our museum (so the pattern tempalte is posted later in the thread).

However - with that stem, could it really be Swedish?

Opinions, please?

(if this is not allowed, what with link and everything, could moderator please delete? I have the original poster's permission - and he has sold the actual glass)

[glassobsessed]

My first thought, it looks like a marriage, bowl and stem from 2 different glasses, 2 styles. Did the green in the stem and foot react to UV?

John

[Paul S.]

Hi Kerstin  ............attractive drinking glass.              Probably the only sure way of confirming a uranium content is to use a u.v. torch (blacklight)  - do you have one?
Glasses such as these are not rare, though the two coloured stem is unusual in my opinion, and it's an attractive appearance  -  uranium content in white wine glasses which show machine and pantograph acid etching seem to have been produced in profusion from the late C19 to more or less the middle of the C20, throughout much of Europe.
However, I'm clueless as to what sort of origin your stem might indicate, but fingers crossed someone may have the answer for you  -  is it possible that Kosta or Afors could be contacted for their opinion on this piece?

I've taken the liberty of attaching a translation of the museum's text  -  since my Swedish is non-existent, and can only hope it sounds about right
Don't think we would call you a nerd  -  if collecting such pieces did mean that then most of us are in the same boat
As to age, you might get some indication from the amount of wear under the foot, but many people here consider that an unreliable means of testing for age.

""To your glass is available in the Bergdala glass Museum, without any specifications (pattern name, number)

The pattern plate came to us together with more than 130 others, together with a Pantograf from Kosta.

We know that some of the plates did not belong to Kostas production (eg we have two from Åfors), that some probably have been "inherited" in all tours around the Swedish crystal Glassworks. In any case, * it could indicate that the glass comes from Kosta (or another use that belonged to the Crystal Glassworks).

Would you be able to contact me at kontakt@bergdala-glastekniska-museum.se""

P.S.   I'm going to disagree with John's suggestion of a 'marriage'    -   these pieces are mass produced and had/have little real commercial value, so IMHO a replacement stem as showing would have outweighed the value of the piece.             Of course if the bowl or stem show uranium content and the other doesn't, then we do have a problem.

[kerstinfroberg]

Thanks for your thoughts.
Unfortunately, the actual glass is lost (sold "years ago", the op told me), so there is no way of knowng wear or uranium contents.

What made me react to the picture was first of all the pattern, the fact that we own a template (two, actually) with the same pattern.
 
ALthough we now have two pantographs we know very little of their origins (they do not have any makers marks): in literature we have found mentions of Reijmyre being the first Swe glassworks to get a pantograph "from France" in the 1880-ies; of Kosta buying an "etching machine" (pantograph?) "from England" in 1894, then "getting" a second one "from Germany" in 1907, and another one, possibly also from Germany, in 1910.   
Pukeberg got one in 1926.
Elme produced pantographed glasses in the 1920ies.
There are no mentions at all about Åfors, except that they gifted a pantograph to Smålands Museum around 1970.
(an attempt to a time-line at http://bergdala-glastekniska-museum.se/eng-ets-tidslinje.html )

Our, the museum's, first machine was used in Kosta, we know that.
It came to us with some 130 templates, most of which has patterns on both sides. We hope to create a database, but that will take time... so, in the meantime, we have two webpages showing some templates: http://bergdala-glastekniska-museum.se/eng-london-baserade.html and http://bergdala-glastekniska-museum.se/eng-sign-panto-plates.html (click for the whole template).

Of course we have tried to find out how (and where, and when...) the templates were made - we have had so many answers that we don't know where to begin - the only conclusions being "in many ways, by different ppl, maybe bought from outside".
 
So, back to the lost wine glass:

(seems I can't figure out how to add pictures - if they do not show, they are both at https://bergdala-museum.blogspot.se/2018/03/ett-spannande-fynd-interesting-find.html and on the original place, see first post)

Question: IF the glass is not from Kosta - where does the template originate? Did machine manufacturers also offer standard templates? And again: who/where did manufacture pantographs...?

As for the stem: I know for a fact (glass blower told me) that at Johansfors they used to make twisted air stems as "yardage" to be cut and used as needed. Maybe that was done "everywhere"? (would perhaps agree with Paul's "massproduced"?)

So many questions - too little literature... unless you can point me to it?

thanks for helping,
Kerstin in Sweden

[Paul S.]

Hi Kerstin  -  over the years many of these acid etched mostly mass-produced similar-shaped uranium content glasses, have appeared on the GMB, I don't recall us ever being able to say that we could match a pattern to its original template/pantograph.
I could be wrong, but your posting may be unique in that you actually have the template/pantograph showing the identical pattern used on your glass - this could be a first for the GMB.                  Expect you're aware of the commonly held belief (ref. Charles Hajdamach's volume 'British Glass 1800 - 1914 ... chapter 9 pp. 175 - 202), that the use of acid to etch glass was discovered by Carl Wilhelm Scheele in Sweden in 1771
Hajdamach's chapter on Acid Etching is a very good contribution to this subject, and is the only substantial text I can think of on this invention, though understandably his choice of material is heavily influenced toward the high-end pieces.     He shows several types of machine as examples of the different methods of apply the patterns onto glass - and just possible that template etching machines were the most simple/common form in use in the U.K. - maybe pantographs were more common on the Continent.

It may well be that those manufacturers who made the etching etc. machines, also made the stencils and pantographs  -  but all now a long time ago, and to quote from C.H's. book he says, when speaking of the templates    ..........."Like many pieces of equipment in the glass trade, few have survived to the present day, having been discarded by glass companies as so much junk".

When I said mass-produced I was referring to these machine acid etched pieces in general, where the stems are single coloured  -  you glass is lifted out of the ordinary and you may well be correct in that twisted stems were made by the yard in preparation for their need as soon as the bowl was ready.               As we've said already, this general type of machine decorated glass has been common for many years, although less so now probably, and most of them had a uranium content to provide their pale green colour, and no doubt made throughout Europe.   

In Andy McConnell's book 'The decanter' (new edition promised toward the end of this year - you must buy a copy)  -  p. 392, he reproduces a page from a catalogue from the Dutch Leerdam glassworks, illustrating fifteen or so geometric patterns used by that company c. 1902.     Also illustrated are examples from The Portuguese Companhia da Nacional E Nova Fabrica de Vidros  plus examples from Tiffin/United States Glass Co., used by them in the 1920s.       Presently its still not difficult to see decanters and carafes, in the U.K. at markets etc. with this acid machine decorated work, so we must assume the stuff was made in staggering profusion.              Your pattern is not a lot unlike some of the Leerdam examples.

In future if you have difficulties uploading pix to the GMB, you might request the services of one of the Mods. - they can receive your pix in large size and will re-size for the Board for you.   

Regret I can't help with your other questions - fingers crossed someone here will be able to help.  

[kerstinfroberg]

Yes, I have the Hajdamach book (also the book abt J Northwood I, which unfortnateely only have Very Small pictures).

I was hoping... there are so many books about, say, pressed glass (and other typically massproduced wares) - I was hoping there was a book about etched glass?!?

- as there are differences in the principle of pantographed (where the pattern is copied)  and guilloché (where the pattern is generated by the machine) and the transfer (where the pattern templates have the pattern in scale 1:1) - it is not enough (to me, the nerd) to talk about just "etched". (Especially as etched nowadays often seems to refer to any matte pattern, be it blasted, engraved or...)

As mentioned above we now have two ps: one horizontal for 24 glasses, one vertical for 12 pcs. They operate exactly opposite (horiz the needles turn, the glass goes up/down; vertical glasses turn, needles go up/down). The one at Smålands museum (Åfors) is similar to our horiz, byt not the same... so: at least 2 mfgs, maybe 3. (these are the only 3 pantographs surviving in Sweden, we think)

I will look for your other references - thanks!

Kerstin   (ps: we also have 2 different guilloché machines...)

[kerstinfroberg]

I found a portugese book from 1900 (Industria do vidro) - my portugese is shaky, to say the least, but between italian and google translate I found this:

(about "engraving" with hydrofluoric acid)
Quando os desenhos consistem simplesmente em linhas curvas mais ou menos regulares que se cruzam, como vemos em muitos vidros gravados, cobre-se o objecto com verniz protector e vae a uma machina especial que rapidamente grava no verniz esses traço?, que se podem variar á vontade, deixando o vidro a descoberto n’esses mesmos traços

which g-t gives as

       When the drawings consist simply of more or less regular curved lines that intersect, as we see in many engraved glasses, the object is covered with protective varnish and goes to a special machine that quickly engraves these lines in the varnish, at ease, leaving the glass in the same trace.

This makes me think of guilloché machines...  the other possibility was (I think it says) drawing by hand.

Alas, The Decanter seems to sell at >GBP 150 - and I'm not paying that much sight unseen. Maybe I can find it over Interlibrary loan.

However: guilloch'e machines are not to be neglected - try http://www.glas-musterbuch.de/Kutzscher-Guilloche-1910.326.0.html for a selection of possible g-machine patterns..., and it has "recipes" too. (And one of our g-machines is a Kutzscher)

Still, I don't think a g-machine can achieve a pattern as the one above.

(And yes, of course I understand that (machhine)etched glasses were massproduced - which is why I wonder why nobody seems to have found them interesting, as compared to pressed glass)

'nuf for today - have a good night!

Kerstin

[Anne Tique]

Just a little intervention here ... Sorry for interrupting the flow of this thread, but I  came across this and recognized the pattern  ... perhaps it might be of interest to you or the museum.

https://www.befr.ebay.be/itm/332355478763?clk_rvr_id=1474714479774&rmvSB=true

[Paul S.]

in case it's of interest, in the U.K. the varnish was mostly referred to as 'resist' and is still described as such today  -  though it serves the same purpose of course.

There will be a second edition of 'The Decanter' book later this year  -  well worth waiting for  -  pre-owned copies of the first edition have been very expensive for a second hand book, but that's the outcome of supply and demand for you.

I think these machine etched glasses have had their day  -  more popular I'd suggest some few years back - now they're all coming out of the woodwork and have perhaps lost some of their interest, though this should mean that single glasses are inexpensive to buy, and they are attractive.        I'd imagine that older examples will have a polished depression under the foot.          As usual with wine glasses, sets of six or twelve are of more value and interest, and a u.v. torch is essential when hunting uranium glasses.

It does look Anne that the central part of the pattern in your link shows gilding - is that correct?

[Anne Tique]

It does look Anne that the central part of the pattern in your link shows gilding - is that correct?

Yes and there are a few lines around the friezes too.