Topic: Cristalleries de Saint-Louis bowl 1908

[flying free]

As clear glass seems to be the thing this week I thought I'd show this.

Will either be used as a salad bowl (it's known as a 'saladier') or will be a Christmas present.
Acid etched with a design of half moons that I think is specific to Saint-Louis and appears as nr.630 in their 1908 catalogue:
https://www.proantic.com/galerie/antiquites-francis-daubet/img/820798-alb-612f9696aa9fe.jpg

The foot is deceptive in the photos - it's a straight sided thick disc applied to the bowl,  in clear glass with a 36 point star cut base.

[chopin-liszt]

The texture is very like some float/roll pressed glass designs found in ancient bathroom windows...
please, don't be angry with me... 

[flying free]

   The French made some great window and mirror glass.  I think St Gobain made textured window glass.
This doesn't look anything like it in real life

I put a close up on but the design is very very very tiny and the bowl just looks like satin glass really until you see it close up.  And then  you can see the design.  They used this apparently 'acid etched' type of design as a background on some fabulous cameo vases and bowls and also on goblets. 
This is an example of it on a lampshade:
https://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,55375.msg313791.html#msg313791

I have a large cameo Baccarat bowl with an acid etched background already , which is why I'll be using this one as a salad bowl. 
Can't be bothered to photograph the Baccarat bowl but this is the design of it - it has a leaf background acid etched pattern and this cameo design:
https://www.rubylane.com/item/513876-2577/Very-Large-Antique-BACCARAT-Eglantier-Pattern

These are specific to their era I believe - and can be very difficult to sift out whether it's Baccarat or Saint-Louis or even Val St Lambert I think.  I'm not sure anyone knows how they were actually achieved and made.

[Ekimp]

Nice bowl, interesting surface finish. I bet it would look good empty on a window sill

[flying free]

It's weird, it will probably look good on the black granite windowsill in the kitchen but it really needs a dark 'ground' to sit on so any of the painted white window sills are no good unfortunately.
It actually looks very glamorous on the cabinet but I don't want to use it there and I'm not a fan of colourless glass to be honest      however, this was so cheap I just couldn't not buy it even though I already knew what it was.

[Paul S.]

you can be honest, we really won't get upset         I'm thinking of the process needed to create your half moon surface decoration  -    can we discount a machine acid etching? - yes?, ..... so, alternatively, we cover the outside with a resist and what  -  then some guy spends hours with a steel stylus making all of these random half moons?       I don't think I'm buying that.    Might the method have been a mould pressing?

I know nothing of Continental bowls from the factories you mention  -  shame the rim isn't Sterling.

[flying free]

The rim has lasted 110 plus years and in very good condition so they must have been/be doing something right    I don't think it's ever been used.  I'm not a fan of gold either but silver would look cheap I think 
  It's incredibly classy, I would say obviously given it's from Saint-Louis however they and Baccarat made a lot of stuff I don't actually like.  It rings like a bell and goes on forever.  Nice piece. £14.

I have no idea about the process.  It  has been discussed before but it seems to have been something that has never been done again I don't think.  So however it was being made and whoever was doing it stopped doing it and the method died out with them I presume. It seems to be peculiar to Saint Louis and Baccarat and possibly Val St Lambert. Although I know we discussed whether my lampshade might have been Riedel as well.

It's a bit like the cloudy fluffy coloured glass made by Daum and Muller Freres etc. 
Example here:
https://www.glassmessages.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=49289.0;attach=111325;image
I've never  seen the technique used by anyone other than French makers n the 20s and 30s or since.  I've no idea how they did it but it's beautiful.

[Paul S.]

the Richardson vermicular or Vermicelli surface decoration (acid) came to mind, but that was pure surface and lacked any depth at all - I really am tempted to think this one could be a pressing of some sort.               Gilded chrome not really my thing  -  if I can't see the lion passant it goes back to the shop

[flying free]

No it's completely different to the Richardson's vermicular.  Completely different look, and feel and texture and technique.  And more to the point they did this technique with a plain cameo coloured layer over the top as well.  So the technique only appears in the areas without the second plain cameo layer design.  It's quite something - look at this lampshade as an example:
https://www.glassmessages.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=55375.0;attach=146312;image

It's not gilded chrome    It's gold leaf applied on the glass edge.

[Paul S.]

I knew I shouldn't have got involved in foreign glass          Who has said it's gold leaf  -  the factory, or does it have rolled gold or gold filled marks?