Topic: Mdina Michael Harris Signed Artillery Style Bottle: Identification Please

[johngowen]

Hi Sue

As an aside, the artillery top looks very similar to the finish on my piece.

You say it had been heat treated...could you explain to me what that is as not sure I Know...thanks in anticipation.

John

[chopin-liszt]

I do think we'd have to see it in reality to decide.
It's authenticity is not in question. And if is sounding as if it probably is right.
I've got a Fish with no neck. It has a wide, heat-finished and rather wonky rim.

"Accidents" did get sold.

A heat treated rim would be finished off in front of the glory hole. The metal gets heated until liquid enough to smooth out.
I've got an early IoWSG Azurene cylinder which has evidence of the glory hole heat treatment. The top 3 inches of silver foil turned blue.

[Penelope12]

Hi John,

I don't know if this is will help shed any light on things - or confuse things even further -  but I have a Mdina strapped glass bottle vase that I have always suspected may have been cut down, however mine looked as though it had been done with a hacksaw! I have since seen two other examples of the same bottle that appear to have been cut down just like mine, as well as examples of complete ones like the one in your photo. I suspect that this may have happened in the factory and they were sold on as seconds, unless there are some seriously clumsy people out there who all have a hacksaw to hand. Like you say, someone has done a seriously good job if it has been restored when glass restorers seem to be as rare as hens teeth!

At the end of the day you have a lovely vase with the addition of the master's signature and that is a find in itself.

[glassobsessed]

If an item was damaged or in some way not up to scratch I do not believe it would have been signed in that fashion. Harris was not in the habit of routinely signing his name to his work. John's bottle looks like a finely executed example (in a very scarce colour), I imagine MH signed it because it was up to scratch and he was proud of his work.

The bottle in the following link makes for an interesting comparison, it was damaged during production and kept by the Harris family for many years. The top was left rough ground and it remained unsigned, leaving that top rough implies to me that they were trying to hide nothing:
https://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,57727.msg327377.html#msg327377

[chopin-liszt]

I've seen a fair few big Earthtones bottles with no flanges and roughly ground tops.
The bottles have a big square base, with an attenuated neck.
But that is the only thing I see regularly with a roughly ground top.
I suppose it is perfectly possible this was done at the factory, and as John says, left rough to there can be no doubt about it being a second. (or because they didn't have polishing time or enough facilties...)
I don't have these any more, sorry, I can't provide an image of the ground top.

[Penelope12]

It is said that many Mdina items were never signed because they were too busy, so I suppose it makes sense that they wouldn't want to spend too much time polishing seconds. Perhaps the long neck vases were particularly difficult to make and that's why quite a few appear to have been cut down.

[chopin-liszt]

In the early days, the base finish itself was rather inconsistent, depending on the time and available workers and proper equipment to do it.

The sheer number of these "equally roughly-ground" tops does appear to suggest it was something carried out at the factory, as you suggested too, Penelope.