Topic: Mystery soliflor bubbly dark blue vase

[rocco]

One of the few pieces in my collection which, though being distinctive and well made, escaped ID for many years now.

Vase with narrow neck, fairly lightweight, dark blue glass internally decorated with bubbles and powders. (Hard to see in normal light due to the rather dark colour).
Stands 30 cm tall, base polished with at circular polished pontil mark.
There is a mysterious label attached to the base, which says
5032/260
BL oxid
20:50
Looks to me like a pattern number (similar to the ones used at Skrdlovice for instance) and probably a decor name / chemical ingredient?

My thoughts so far regarding the decor: Murano (Barovier "Efeso"), Germany (Gralglas, Peill and possibly others), Leerdam, or maybe a Scandinavian maker?
But no convincing ID so far...

Thanks for any thoughts!

Michael

[chopin-liszt]

I do think the BL oxid refers to the decor. BL for blue and oxid for oxide which would refer to the black "powders" which are most likely related to the bubbles.
Horst Tusselmann used some kind of oxidised black substance in Scheiliergraphit and earlier bubbled pieces, such as the one illustrated in Lesley Jackson from the '60s, with flecks of colours.
So I'm currently veering towards a German origin. But black oxides are also used in Norwegian glass for bubbles and textures. (eg Benny Motzfeldt).

Bit of a mystery and rather lovely. 

[flying free]

The thing that strikes me is that it's a strange blue.  Not Cobalt but maybe Prussian blue?  Bit like Ruda Glasbruk blue here:
https://www.bukowskis.com/en/lots/801271-vase-glass-ruda-glasbruk-label-marked-60-s

The other thing is I thought initially the /260 but would be mm for height - but it's 30cm so not a measurement.  So as you say, maybe a production/pattern code instead. 

The base looks a bit WMF like maybe.

Hmmm, having made the above comment about it not looking like Cobalt blue (I always imagine cobalt blue to have a purplish tinge?? Perhaps that's wrong then?), I have noticed this info about a Ruda Glasbruk vase on CW website, where the poster seems to say a lot of Cobalt was used in the making of their blue:
https://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/117360-kobalt-glass-vase-ruda-sweden

[NevB]

I think the BL oxid possibly stands for Lead (Blei) Oxide and the 20/50 possibly 40% lead content although that would be very high. Schott Zwiesel?

[chopin-liszt]

If the two letters were to stand for the metal lead, surely they'd have used Pb, the official and internationally understood chemical sign?

What would lead oxide do with hot glass? Does anybody know? Is that not what makes it crystal rather that imparting a colour or being the black powder that causes bubbles. 

[NevB]

I was just referring to the possible composition of the glass, lead oxide in German is "Bleioxid".

[rocco]

Thanks all -- very interesting comments!

My thought so far had been that BL oxid possibly refers to the German "Bleioxid" (like Nev). But the vase is really light weight for such a tall piece, I don't know if that would be true if it was lead crystal glass.
So Sue's suggestion that BL might mean blue (blau in German, blå in Swedish/Norwegia, blauw in Dutch would work equally) looks much more convincing now.
So that label would describe a vase in a blue colourway with oxide decor.

Though the vase is just short of 300mm high, I would agree to m's suggestion that the 260 might still hint to a size of 260mm for that model.
I have several Skrdlovice pieces with similar labels indicating pattern number and size (Robert once kindly identified those as "pattern room examples", which means role models for the glass workers -- several of them are quite oversized).

The Ruda glassworks blue does look very similar indeed, but I would think that glass colorants were available across Europe?

Which leaves the main question -- where was it made?

Gut feeling is still Germany, with several glassworks using metal oxides for their glass (particularly Gralglas with Karl Wiedmann experimenting a lot with colours and powders). But I couldn't find anything really similar in the book or on the CD.
@Sue: I don't have the Leslie Jackson "60s" book -- does the Peill vase really look similar? - I have to admit that coloured glass by Peill is new to me.
I know too little about Norwegian glass, but most pieces by BM seem much more weighty...

I would still think rather factory than studio glass (particularly with that label).

Michael

[chopin-liszt]

It's 20th century factory glass, p 160 for the low thick bowls with grey metallic inclusions and tiny specks of red yellow and green enamel inclusions. The colours don't show up in the pic there, but I have an example of the one from '62, which is not the same as schleiergraphit and I think is a bit earlier. I have dug around my recovered windows 7 bits, I have pics. They might even post.
However, I think this is me going up a blind alley as far as your bottle is concerend - more for your interest and to show that colour was used.
I cannot find any illustrated on the web, but I don't think my pc is able to search much.


ETA. the found pics.

[rocco]

Ah thank you Sue, I have that book, so I can check when I am back in Vienna!

Edit: very nice piece! Black powders, but not so bubbly I think...?

Michael