Topic: centerpiece with dolphins... french or bohemian?

[BlueOctopus]

Hello sorry , my english is failing in the moment. I don’t understand what you mean with sit on the stand.

[flying free]

Hi,

Wenn Sie die Delphinstützen entfernen, sitzt die Schüssel richtig auf dem Ständer?

I have found another dolphin page for you to look at.  You might be able to compare the Harrach dolphin with your stand more clearly.  It's not a great picture but the best so far.

https://www.yumpu.com/de/document/read/16359863/adler-delphine-und-busten-aus-pressglas-graflich-schaffgotsch-

[BlueOctopus]

So after some hours of research in the Pressglas Korrespondenz I´m pretty sure that my bowl is one of the Harrach /Meyr piece. All three articles claim that they  are all pretty sure that it is Harrach, but all are not 100 % sure.

fact is, my bowl has the same dolphins than in this link, even the rim of the bowl is quite equal.

https://www.pressglas-korrespondenz.de/aktuelles/pdf/pk-2005-2w-sg-harrach-delphine.pdf
 

you ask me if the bowl fits when the dolphins are taken of, yes it would, but unfortunately I had to fix the bowls because the old connection got lost. I don´t even have an idea how they were fixed in the past.If you would take the dolphins out the bowls would fit together, like in the link the left bowls, only oval not round


I think the dolphins are made in one glasfactory the bowls in an other, the dolphins have a slightly greyisch/ yellow glas, the bowls have a very white clear glas.

[flying free]

If made by Harrach I would think they have both been made by Harrach though despite the difference in colour.

If I recall correctly from what I read, Harrach did do some experiments with pressed glass and some items from pressed glass.  Although again, if I have remembered correctly, Bohemian glass makers were keen on handblown glass rather than pressed glass.  They didn't really go down the pressed glass route in a major way from what I understand.

So they will have made the dolphins at one time/place/from one pot and pressed then cut/finished and the bowls will have been handblown as usual from another time or another pot then cut as usual - if you see what I mean?  Then fitted together as one design.

Harrach definitely made dolphins and bowls with dolphin stands as there was an invoice dating to 1840

Just to add, in
 the book it says:

Source - From Neuwelt to the Whole World, Jan Mergl 2012 pp113

'At the beginning of the 1840s the Neuwelt glassworks introduced a completely new design into production: bowls with a foot in the form of a dolphin that were made by hot moulding (so called 'free hand'), or pressing, and were then refined by cutting, painting (in gold) and engraving.  One of the first invoice records (including a schematic drawing) of these objects comes from 1840 and describes '2 Chrystall Fruchtschalen mit mattirten Saufisch auf Sokl( Note No136 - Saufisch is the archaic German word for Dolphin)' - ' 2 bowls in crystal glass with a matte dolphin on the base'.  This type of artefact continued to be manufactured by the factory long after the mid-nineteenth century (Note 137 - see Zelasko 2005, cat. no. 19-20)

.

[BlueOctopus]

I just ordered the Harrach book, looking foward what I find there.
But what you said fits to my meaning that the bowls are Harrach, blown and cutted, the dolphins are from a different glasmaker.

But I´m very happy that you resolved a mystery for me. Even when the connections are missing and are awful bad repared, I think this is a realy remarkable piece

[flying free]

Oh it is indeed!  It is absolutely gorgeous.

And it's not easy to find pieces from that era.  They are around and in museum collections but I don't often see bowls like this and certainly not this big.

Have you had a search online of the museum collections?  Oh I have just thought of something.
You could email Harrach directly. 

Again my memory isn't great but I seem to remember there being a fire and the pattern books being lost, however,they just might be able to help you a bit more especially as it is such an unusual piece.

Also, in the Corning musuem, and somewhere on this site (I'll see if I can find it in a minute) there is a link to an early Meyr's Neffe catalogue I think. 
I will try and find the link for you and post it later or tomorrow morning.

The Harrach book is fantastic - and huge.  I've read it in sections over time, rather than reading the whole thing at once which I keep meaning to do!

[BlueOctopus]

Since yesterday I didn´t even had an idea that Harrach could be the solution. I was more in the french direction, but in this articles from the Pressglas Korrespondenz Baccara is often mentioned with the dolphins, so that was maybe not absolutely wrong.

when I have the book, I´ll maybe try to connect Harrach directly

I just started a new post with another mystery, but the posting faild, dont know why, I try again.
 

[flying free]

The rim of the bowl, the way it is cut always makes me think Bohemian. I could be wrong but I would not see it and think French because of that.

So a small example here:
https://www.glaswolf.de/Biedermeier_UEberfan.288+B6YmFja1BJRD0yODgmcHJvZHVjdElEPTI0NDImcGlkX3Byb2R1Y3Q9Mjg4JmRldGFpbD0_.0.html

or here
https://www.glaswolf.de/Biedermeier_Goldrubi.288+B6YmFja1BJRD0yODgmcHJvZHVjdElEPTMyMzQxJnBpZF9wcm9kdWN0PTI4OCZkZXRhaWw9.0.html

Or this one
https://www.glaswolf.de/Biedermeier_UEberfan.288+B6YmFja1BJRD0yODgmcHJvZHVjdElEPTI0NjEmcGlkX3Byb2R1Y3Q9Mjg4JmRldGFpbD0_.0.html

[flying free]

RE Harrach and their pressed glass:

See page 275 - The Legend of Bohemian Glass, Antonin Langhammer

(top of centre column)
Under paragraph title 'Pressed Glass'

'...Beginning in 1830 the technique was also used in England and France.  The first to employ it in Bohemia was probably the Harrach glassworks in Novy Svet (1833), but only on a limited basis.  Johann Pohl feared that it could deprive local glasscutters of their jobs.'  (My bold)

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=UwLCa_h3hTEC&pg=PA275&dq=harrach+pressed+glass&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiPuPPezp3sAhXTSBUIHZmHDG4Q6AEwAXoECAYQAg#v=onepage&q=harrach%20pressed%20glass&f=false

[thewingedsphinx]

Checkout this link to a dolphin lamp, dolphins look very similar.

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/754771032/antique-victorian-clear-pressed-glass?ref=user_profile