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

[johngowen]

Dear Members, I recently purchased this fabulous and unusually coloured cylindrical bottle with a flat ground top and bottom at the National Glass Fair in Birmingham. 29cm tall and signed by Michael Harris.

In Paul Hill’s bookunder bottle section, p45 ”Other bottle forms include a mould blown cylindrical example, with a horizontal base and top, and with a cylindrical neck, and a tapered cylinder with a button opening and no neck, that resembles an artillery shell in form. Both are rare”

Am I a lucky boy and would my example be the artillery shell form? Or am I getting ahead of myself

Paul mentions “they are usually found in translucentmottled green, or green ribbons and mottled ochre colour ways”

My example is brown and a light yellow. Has anyone seen other examples of these?

I would be delighted if any of my learned colleagues could provide further light on this beautiful piece and look forward to being enlightened by more experienced collectors of Mdina pieces.

John

[chopin-liszt]

It looks like an attenuated bottle, (as illustrated in Mark's book in your photo) minus the top neck and flange.
Is the rim heat finished? It is a bit hard to tell from your photo, which is sideways on and has a lot going on in the background.
It thr rim is heat finished (rounded and smooth) it's fine. Probably supposed to be an attenuated bottle, but something went wrong and it got finshed off differently rather than binning it. If it's been cut and polished or ground, you've got a bottle that has been cut down, probably after some damage to the top.
While you think it looks brown, it's actually amethyst over a yellow frothy background.
It is a much more unusual colourway than teal over yellow.

It's not the artillery-thing shape. That is much more thick and solid; and smaller, more like a big perfume bottle.

[johngowen]

Hi Sue

I think you could be right...I'm at work but will take a picture of the top when back home and send it over. I think it has been polished on the top surface.

I will report back.

Thank you for coming back to me, it is appreciated.

John

[chopin-liszt]

  Sorry about the potential bad news, but it is still a Michael Harris piece, in an unusual colourway.
Better with the damage sorted than binning it completely.

[johngowen]

Hi Sue,

Please find attached three pictures of the top of the Mdina piece.

As you can see from the pictures, the top is not flat but curves in towards the centre. if it had been cut off and ground, i don't believe that would be the case and when you run your finger (and tongue...sorry but much more sensitive) you can feel no edge.

If it had been cut, the polisher would then have had to round off the top to make it appear the way it does...is that likely or could this piece have been originally designed that way by Michael Harris?

Michael could have signed it either way, whether as a attenuated bottle or as an original piece so the signature doesn't help, only the fact that we know he created it but as what???

I would value your thoughts once again once you have seen the latest pictures.

Once again, thank you for your support and help so far, it is appreciated.

john

[glassobsessed]

A couple more items here in the same amethyst and yellow ochre colours: https://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,36662.0.html

Yours is almost certainly a bottle which has lost it's top, if the body has been flattened slightly to be vaguely triangular rather than round then it started life as a Tricorn bottle.

The dealers who stand at the National Glass Fair are required to abide by certain standards by the organisers. One of which is not to offer for sale any heavily restored items, as far as I am concerned this would fall into that category. The dealer should have known that this is a bottle missing the top and as far as I am concerned unless they are delusional they would have. If the dealer had informed you that it had been restored and you were happy to purchase at an appropriately reduced price then all well and good.

A few years ago I found myself in exactly this situation after buying a Lollipop vase at the National, details here: https://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,50802.0.html

John

[chopin-liszt]

That's very useful and well illustrated, John.
The new pics of the rim leave me doubting a bit - it does look rounded, and johngowan says he tried using his tongue to test for edges. 
(Which is not remotely disgusting.  It's eminently sensible, and I know of others who lick glass to test it. You test for real pearls by rubbing them on your teeth.)

But there is that peculiar flat-looking ring in it.  That doesn't look right. I'd really like to be able to get my teeth onto it too, and check it myself.
As it is a very unusual thing, and has the pawmark, I imagine somebody may well have paid for a very good repair job.

I've found myself in the opposite situation. I bought a lollipop at a National which was far too cheap. The seller said she thought the top was broken. It wasn't. It was raggedy but very tall and all properly heat finished.

I've found a pic of the bottle i think is the artillery shape. I don't have it any more and I don't have pics of the rim, which is rounded and heat finished. It didn't look peculiar or odd, I don't think.  

[glassobsessed]

I see a distinct bevel on the inside of the rim, looks like good work.

[chopin-liszt]

On the new pics of the big, signed bit?
I can see a bevel, if I look for it. I'm not sure it's really there though. It might be an internal reflection in the casing?
(My eyes have been doing strange things recently. Yesterday I had a large blind spot in one of them, with rotating kalidescopic images all around it. It was quite interesting, but a bit awkward when I was trying to find anything.)

I'm still terribly unsure whether it's original or not.
If it's heat finished, it is.
If it's been polished, it's quite a wonderful job, but is highly likely not to be original.

[johngowen]

Hi John and Sue,

Thank you kindly for both your professional opinions, it is appreciated. I would love either of you to see it in the flesh as if it was a cut down bottle, someone has done a seriously good job.

The piece itself is a great colour and still an attractive piece, just wish we could all say it was an original but definitely need it authenticated further

Either way I am happy to keep it.

Thank you once again.

John