Topic: Thomas Webb wheel engraved glass for show.

[Paul S.]

only the one unfortunately  -  7 inches tall (c. 18 cms.)  -  so have assumed a hock glass though the bowl shape doesn't look very 'hock-like'.           Wheel engraving to die for  -  the swags composed of mini oval mitres - plus the daisies and the other half mitres and oval beading  -  very beautiful - and a long lasting ring.

Would normally assume wheel engraving such as this might be on a glass from the first two decades of the C20, but doubt this one has that sort to age   ...........  there's an absence of a pontil depression, and instead the slightly raised 'button' shape in it's place suggests machine made perhaps. 

The back stamp is the 'Made in England with Webb in the centre, which the books suggest is mid 1930s to late 1940s.        By all means add more information if available, and thanks for looking.

[keith]

Good find Paul. afraid I can't add any more information, we went 'on the hunt' today and came back with vegetables ! 

[Paul S.]

agree, Keith  -  it can be a bit hit and miss, and I think it gets more of a miss as time goes on.  

[Ekimp]

Nice glass. I think this is an example of the Intaglio technique developed by John Northwood I rather than wheel engraving as such. It has the standard Intaglio shape cuts. http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,68028.msg380843.html#msg380843

[Paul S.]

thanks, and I bow to your superior knowledge - must get out more often, I'm getting rusty.              Certainly some of the cuts/engravings have that characteristic appearance of one side at 90 degrees then rising to the level surface on the other side.     With the garlands it looks possibly that the mitre cuts are made as standard mitres but due to their profusion and compactness each side of the mitre reflects light differently.          Possibly the daisies are cut similarly, and again reflecting light differently depending on how they're oriented.      It's quite staggering how fine these cuts can be made using a small stone wheel.             
As Hajdamach says  -   "In the modern day glass factories in Stourbridge, the use of intaglio cutting has superseded copper wheel engraving etc. ....."

A big thanks for pointing this out.         I have another piece of T.W. that I picked up some weeks back and not yet posted.    You might find it interesting to see that and how it differs from this one.

Oddly, although my mind was probably thinking 'copper wheel engraving', I notice that I hadn't used the word copper, but I should obviously have added 'intaglio'            I've a feeling there was another T.W. glass on the stand - different intaglio pattern - so will go back tomorrow and try to get that one.

[Ekimp]

You seem to have some good productive charity shops nearby

I’ve been looking at Intaglio again this week. I had a reasonably good find myself in one of my charity shops that I thought was wheel engraving but when I got home and had a proper look (need to go to opticians), realised it was actually very nice fine Intaglio. It’s some sort of bird and the cuts are really effective for the feathers, they have used different textures and cuts and must have planed for how the light would reflect from the cuts. It is quite bright and lively. I can see why Intaglio became popular, especially as I assume it was quicker.

Although the cuts that resemble scimitar blades referred to as the standard Intaglio cuts, Intaglio wasn’t limited to those shapes. So the ‘v’ shaped cuts and flat marks can also be Intaglio (as I understand it )

[Paul S.]

thanks.          Not entirely sure I understand the intaglio process fully, bearing in mind a 'stone' wheel is used to create the cuts  -  it's not that I don't follow the basic principles, but it's understanding how such small dainty cuts, when finished, are bright and shiny bearing in mind they were made with a 'stone' wheel.            Prior to acid polishing (c. 1920s), and in order to remove the grinding marks on bog standard cut glass, the cutters had to go back over every cut using a polishing compound, in order to brighten and polish the cut design.     Acid polishing, apparently, did away with the need for this time consuming job, though in the process the sharpness of the cutting was lost to some extent.          I can't imagine remotely that these very fine detailed intaglio designs might be re-worked to polish the cuts, and acid polishing would be out of the question.                So the answer must lie in the method used for the basic cutting - perhaps the 'stones' are in fact ultra fine and capable of making and polishing the cuts first time round.
If you look at the picture in Hajdamach - p. 291 - there's a picture of Joshua Hodgetts at work on an intaglio lathe - albeit early C20 (much later than when the piece here was made) - and the 'stone' appears to be fed constantly with compound via the pad resting on the top of the 'wheel'.

If you look at 'rock crystal' cutting, this too has a similar appearance of fine detailed cuts that are 'watery' and shiny in appearance, so possibly the same method used  -  agree about re-reading all of this subject - it's complex.

Agree, the scimitar cuts (90 degree one side etc. ), are what we imagine typical intaglio to be, and there are a few on the piece here, though I'm also inclined to suspect that use of the word intaglio by glass cutters might just have been borrowed from the steel engravers.       In the world of artist engraving on copper, steel zinc etc   - i.e. resist -  stylus for design - acid dip - clean
resist  -  ink up and print ....   the end result is a fine intaglio line with which to print the ink.             So perhaps it's possible that the glass guys borrowed the word 'intaglio' to describe their own fine detailed cutting.        Well, it sounds good   

[flying free]

Can't add anything useful except I would say not a hock glass.
The bowl seems to be the wrong shape.
Maybe martini or champagne?  or just white wine but I don't think I'd use 'hock' to describe it.
It's pretty.
mxx

[Paul S.]

you could be right m  -  I'm not too well up on these things, and as I mentioned it didn't look very hock ish to me either.    I always assumed champers and white wine were taken in smaller glasses, but who knows.      Martini sounds a possibility, the bowl has a cocktail deco look about it 

[Ekimp]

John Northwood II says that Intaglio decoration was achieved by using a smooth stone wheel turned on a power lathe and fed with a constant stream of water (so that’s water being fed to the wheel in the Hajdamach picture rather than a cutting compound). He says “the resultant decoration being very smooth in its cuts and easily polished when necessary”. The work was held against the underside of the stone in a similar way to an engraver (with cut glass apparently the article was held on the top of the wheel and the worker looked through the glass).

He says they started by using small stones on a pedal powered engraving lathe but had to upgrade to a more substantial power driven lathe to hold larger stone wheels. They had to modify these larger lathes so that the speed could easily be changed by the operator - presumably this was done on an engraving lathe by adjusting the pedalling. There was a threaded spindle so that various size stones could be used.

He says “As this was a new departure from the existing styles of decoration, a name for it was desirable. Eventually the name ‘Intaglio’ was chosen and so it has been ever since”. It’s a shame they didn’t just make up an original meaningless new word, like they do for cars

Apparently this technique wasn’t changed much (written 1968) except for electric motors being used for power.