Topic: An original (not moulded) Dartington Alfred Capredoni wren?

[chopin-liszt]

Yes.
I think it is of considerable interest just on the grounds of it being done on a good bit of cullet in the first place. I might be tempted to assume it is Dartington cullet, from the mark.
But the engraving is realy wonderful quality too.
Why, oh why did the artist not sign it?

[Ekimp]

I have found out some more about this and another one I acquired sometime after posting the wren topic. The other one is engraved with a mouse, weighs almost 2.5kg and is signed ‘DARTINGTON 1980’. They were both engraved by John Ford.

I contacted John after being pointed in his direction by Kim Thrower. John said he engraved for Dartington for a period of roughly three years before he left, and later went to Orrefors in Sweden to concentrate on graal. Apparently it was company policy at the time that the pieces should not be signed by the artist. John kindly confirmed that he had engraved both items.

There is some information on John on this topic: https://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,911.0.html
And his website: http://johnfordgraal.co.uk

At first I had contacted Kim Thrower as I found a reference to Kim on the Cambridge glass fair website (http://www.cambridgeglassfair.com/exhibitors/thrower.htm). This says “Jeremy Thorpe, then leader of the Liberal Party  [1967-1976 wiki] and MP for Devon, commissioned two ‘icebergs’, one for the Queen and the other for the Duke of Edinburgh. This was Kim’s first commission.” So I thought Kim May have also engraved my wren.

Although Kim hadn’t done my engraving, he got back to me and said he did the icebergs for the Queen and Prince Philip when he was 17, they we’re also just signed ‘Dartington’. The blocks had sharp edges and some years later they were sent back to Dartington to have the edges bevelled. Kim said “...the story and confirmed was that Fagan broke into Buckingham Palace, sat at the end of the Queens bed bleeding from his hand clutching half a broken ashtray, there are no ashtrays in the Palace it was the Iceberg hence the bevelling.”