Topic: ID bohemian?

[marc]

Hi,
Could anyone help me with this weight id.
Amber flash weight with a bouquet engraved, it has concave base,  I think it might be Bohemian. could it be mid 19th C ?     
Many thanks.

Marc.

[flying free]

Baccarat used a similar colour (browny amber - difficult to tell how similar as the tumblers it is on are clear with a very thinly cased section in a medallion shape on the front) and similar wheel engraved decoration as seen on a tumbler in Baguiers et Verre a Boire du XIXeme siecle Darnis L, pp193.  The tumbler decoration picture is more elaborate and has more and different flowers but includes flowers the same as yours, three of them as the 'centrepiece' of the decoration.
Tumbler is dated c 1850-1860.

On page 173 same book, there is a goblet by Plaine-de-Walsh-Vallerysthal.  It is also clear but has browny amber medallions flashed onto it.  The engraving is of the same flower and also the three dots with only one stem (unlike the Baccarat version which has the three dots with three stems in it's design) and the leaves on this goblet (P-de-W-V) also look similar to yours.
I think that is a much much nearer comparison that the Baccarat engraved piece I mentioned above.
I'd say it's almost the same design as your paperweight plus the right colour flashing. It's dated c.1845-1860.
The write up on that piece reference the design as being similar to the design seen on a footed bowl from Plaine-de-Walsch dated c.1836.

On that basis I'd be looking at possibly Plaine-de-Walsch-Vallerysthal as a starting point for id.

With the caveat that I know nothing about paperweights, so open to correction.

Do you have a fluorescent uv light?  Can you say what colour the clear glass fluoresces?

m

[tropdevin]

**

Always hard to say with these, but I would rule out Baccarat, and suggest 'Bohemian' or even Belgian.  I don't think it affects the value, whoever made it.

Alan

[flying free]

Do you think the book might have the goblet wrong then?  Having looked it up because I remembered that browny amber colour, which for some reason just never reminds me of Bohemian glass, and looked again just now,  the engraving is I would say, almost identical in type (matt) and the actual design of the flowers and leaves and how they are engraved and how they are laid out on the glass in design, on the Plaine-de-Walsch-Vallerysthal goblet. The goblet is also flashed in panels.  It dates to  c1845-1860 according to the book.
Of course that is not to say they weren't doing that identical design in matt engraving on browny amber flashed glasses many years later, or indeed at another factory in another country, but I think given the remarkable similarities, then they have to be in the frame as maker?
He says it fluoresces - 'Fluorescence: Jaune vert intense "fluo" '
And gives density as 2,49 (cristal sans plomb)

m

[tropdevin]

***

Hi m.  Not so much the goblet being wrongly identified (though that is always possible), as very similar pieces being made at various locations in Europe.  I think the glass works you mention moved from Plaine-de-Walsch to nearby Vallerysthal around 1830 (hence the double barrelled name).  Last year we visited the museum in nearby Miesenthal, where there were examples of engraved flash overlay pieces in various colours (including brown) from various Alsace factories: I fear that ID of these pieces is very complicated.   I sold a somewhat similar piece recently, but with a flashed red base, to an American collector who has several of these and is a careful experienced researcher.  He is convinced they are Bohemian.

Alan

[flying free]

Thank you Alan.
I think there has been mention elsewhere of glass engraving patterns, which I presume were available for engravers to follow.

I just have to say though the engraving on the red one you have just shown is nothing like the engraving on the OPs in my opinion, but the engraving in the book on the goblet is just like the OPs in my opinion from what I can see. Including the style of engraving and the actual design and design layout.



m

[marc]

Hi all.

I don't have an ultraviolet lamp. I can only contribute that this method of ovelaying was introduced by Friedrich Egermann in 1820s, getting ruby colour with copper salts  and amber colour with silver salts, extremely summarized.

Many thanks  for your interesting comments.

Marc.