Topic: Unknown threaded type glass vase -ID help

[mitko07]

Hello everybody!
Here is this great looking vase that is a total mystery for me so far.
it is made of vivid blue opaline glass and has satin finish and threaded decoration.
It looks like the threads were fire polished during the manufacturing.
Size is 17cm high x 13.5cm wide.
All opinions welcome!
Thanks in advance!
Best regards!

[Paul S.]

Hi - very attractive piece of glass and intriguing form of surface design  -  regret I'm unable to help with id, but possibly worth suggesting that your use of the term 'threaded decoration' might give some confusion, since this description has historically been used to describe something quite different to what we see on your vase.

The use of a real thread of molten glass wound, spirally or in plain non-spiral form, around a body of glass, has been a form of decoration on glass probably since the ancient Egyptians, and was very big in the C19.
Apparently when added free-hand it's called trailing, and if done by machine it's described as threading  -  quite how, correctly, we should describe the surface decoration on your vase I'm unsure.

How the decoration on your glass is created I'm unsure  -  it might be acid cut back -  applied  -   mould formed - or as you suggest ground and fire polished.
Does this piece show any opalescence at the edges, or might it be simply opaque glass rather than opaline?
Anyway great colour and attractive  -  hopefully someone here will be able to offer something more positive than these comments.

[Lustrousstone]

Lovely colour. I agree with Paul; it's either acid cut back or even sand blasted

[chopin-liszt]

I'd like to be able to feel how sharp the edges of the pattern are - that could give an indication of how well it was made and whether it was acid etched or sandblasted
I can see what looks like the remnants of a pontil scar - but also something that looks as if it might be a mould line on the base?
I have no idea of age.
Portmeiron did do some very large pieces of glass with deep etched patterns within the last 20 years or so, but the quality of the etching is not terribly good. It feels sharp and rough, but it looks good. The bit I have is a big "wastepaper basket" in white with black wiggly lines all over. Nothing like this.

[glassobsessed]

Maybe not a mould line but a trail - perhaps associated with the blob of glass covering the pontil scar - a variation on what we usually see I think.

John

[mitko07]

Thanks for your attention and time!
It is indeed a very nice vase. It is hard to forget once you see it.
Yes I agree it is not exactly threaded decoration but this is the closest I can think of.
If you google "Pallme threaded vase" you will see that similar and not uniforms decorations are called threaded.
Trailing is probably a proper therm if there no other.
It is sporadic and still there is some kind of pattern in it.
Having the advantage to be able to closely inspect the vase I can tell few things for certain about how it was made.

1. The trails were applied by hand to my opinion. I can see  they were round when applied and later pressed to become what they look now.
The sides of the trail pattern are still rounded as are the edges.
2 I believe the vase was made in the following order. First the body of the vase is blown. The the trails were applied and then the  surface matte satin finish is made somehow as some kind of chemical reaction. After this while the vase still hot it was turned in one of those (I don't know the exact name) wooden half moulds the glassblowers use to give shape to a vessel. When I said fire polished I meant this process of turning which polished just the top of the trails but not the sides. Also the surface of the polished trails have a micro trail pattern as if the vase was turned in the described above way against not perfectly smooth surface of the wooden mould.
Also there are  thinner and lower sections of the trails which remained unpolished.
I can also say I am 100% certain that the decoration was not carved, acid etched, sand blasted , mould formed or The trails were not polished using abrasives.

The lines to the base looks to be the end of the trail decoration. Also I think there is no pontil mark to the bottom - the roughness  in the center to my opinion is due to the excess glass of that line being spread.
I will add a close up pictures.
Excuse my not so well English !
All the best!

[chopin-liszt]

Acid etched, I believe. 
The rounded, slightly rough texture is what you get from acid treatment.
If any acid had leaked out from under the stencil, it might have been polished off, but I do not think the marks you point to, indicate polishing.

The edges being nicely rounded indicates significantly better quality than my Portmeiron!

It's what is called cameo. Just on a single colour.

[mitko07]

It could have been treated with acid to produce the matte finish while the vase was still hot.
 I do not believe it is acid etched  to produce the deep  relief of the trail pattern.
The continued  line on the bottom is the simplest proof of that.
I have seen  cameo vases polished and unpolished- this is not the case  in my opinion.
The way the bottom is finished reminds me of something that I have seen but totally different.
I was thinking of these usually attributed to Bristol of certain Bohemian white satin types.

[chopin-liszt]

I don't think anybody using the sort of acid - either hydrofluoric acid or the older aqua regia (A mixture of Nitric and Hydrochloric acids, both clear, but suddenly turns bright orange when they're mixed!) which would dissolve glass, would want to put it anywhere near heat.    

Acid etching is done on cold glass, with a stencil applied to the surface which will not dissolve in the acid. The glass will stay shiney where the stencil was, and be satinated where the acid ate it away.
There is simply a bit of the base which has not been acid treated - the bit you call "end of the trail". There would have been part of the stencil there - perhaps for getting it out of the acid bath later on?

Your English is wonderful! I hope I'm not writing things that are too complicated to follow.
Cameo glass is a really difficult and complicated thing to do.
There are a few videos on youtube about it, but so fr, I'm only finding ones which show carving rather than acid etching.
There is one on the use of hydrofluoric acid. And some long ones on cameo making - but glassmaking is one of the most fascinating things in the world to watch. 

[Ekimp]

Hi, if it was done with applied trails then I would think you should see some sort of mark somewhere that would show where one trail went over the top of another, such as I have shown in this Will Shakspeare perfume bottle. In this perfume bottle, the whole surface is flush and the white surface has a texture that isn’t present on the trails. You can see a line (above the bright spot) where the fat trail overlaps the thin trail and they join, but it is hard to see and photograph.