Topic: Victorian pressed glass “Obelisk” Cleopatras Needle, Greener?

[thewingedsphinx]

Any ideas who made this piece would be interesting, I think the old books say Henry Greener but was just wondering if it was ever correctly attributed cheers Mike

[Anne]

Is it really glass, Mike? It looks more like pottery from your pics but it's hard to be sure as they aren't very big.  Can you make your images about 700 pixels along the longer edge please so we can see more detail? Thanks.

[Paul S.]

probably not helped by the fact that it's been made in a pottery sort of colour.                There's a picture of an identical piece in Slack - page 112, and the caption reads:    ""Ornament in the form of Cleopatra's Needle in Opal glass, c. 1880.      Maker unknown.      Height 8.1/2 in (21.6 cm).       A similar model was made as a pomade jar and registered 13 October 1879 by G.V. de Luca, a firm of merchants' agents in London""

Not sure as to the origin of the suggestion of Henry Greener  -  Slack makes no mention of an obelisk when discussing their work.      Of course, an attribution may have been discovered since the publication of Ray Slack's book, though I'm unaware of progress in that direction.     Perhaps others here who are more up-to-date on pressed glass might know.

Does the height match Mike?

P.S.   Hajdamach shows both the clear G. V. de Luca piece plus the pottery coloured example, for which he also comments "unmarked but must date to the same period."    He also speaks of this one as being 'white' - page 348.
The only other obelisk I can see at a quick glance is in Thompson - page 82 - in blue marbled Vitro-Porcelain - the lady says "unmarked c. 1880 probably from Tyneside and possible Ed. Moore & Co.

[thewingedsphinx]

Hi Paul,
Yes the measurements match, and this one is the same as in Hajdamachs book, dad recently found this one in a box in the loft. Been up there forgotten about for 15 years or more. I'll try and do some better photos later. I may be able to add photos of the blue one you mention also, as we have one of those too. Cheers Mike

[Paul S.]

for whatever reason I'm minus pix of the G. G. de Luca pomade obelisk - neither am I able to see any pix of the blue marble Vitro-Porcelain piece.
I can understand this one and the blue example being absent since neither appear to have been Registered, so are naturally absent form TNA records.
But why the Luca picture is absent from my photos for 1877 is a mystery - always possible I've overlooked taking a photograph, but always possible the original factory image has been removed from the Kew records.              Perhaps the next person who visits TNA at Kew might check 315269 to see if the original image is present  -  the Board of Trade reference is Representations book 43/62 which covers most of that decade.
This is what passes for humour at this late hour  -  I can't imagine anyone actually visiting TNA in west London

Look forward to additional pix Mike, and while you're at it you might decipher the hieroglyphics for us.

It's a shame that Jenny Thompson didn't elaborate a tad on why she suggested Ed. Moore  - in view of the fact that it's V-P, plus the colour, there's a real temptation to think of Sowerby. 

[thewingedsphinx]

Does this picture work?

[thewingedsphinx]

Hooray 😁 finally managed to resize. By the way all four faces are different. I won’t be able to add pictures of the blue one till the end of the week. Cheers Mike.

Ooh I might post some more photos now...

[agincourt17]

Here are copies of Paul + TNA's pics of the design representation of the G.V. de Luca's obelisk plus a photo of an example in clear+ white opaque glass and another in blue marbled glass.

Fred.

[thewingedsphinx]

Fred,
Thanks for showing those, not seen them before an quite unusual.
Regards Mike

[Paul S.]

thanks to both Mike and Fred  -  it's a good job that someone knows what I've been doing over the past few years - even if I don't 

Apparently pomade (from the Latin for fruit/apple) was a C19 name given to a type of hair dressing/cream  -  modern equivalents are Brylcreem or, more generically, hair gel, but pomade probably sounds better.