Topic: Bohemian portrait salts and later versions?

[CL]

Hi all, hoping to get some help looking at 4 portrait salt cellars I have. I'll start with the info I already have:

Two of them clearly go together as a couple, and I'm pretty confident that they are Bohemian, late 18th or maybe early 19th century. They were purchased from England. I'm also fairly sure that they represent some sort of model/template figures rather than individual people. There was another salt cellar with what looks like a different view of the same man posted here a while back: https://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,55531.30.html
And there is one that looks like a different view of the woman in Jyzk and Robertson's Open Salt Compendium (p. 74).

I've done quite a bit of research on the couple, and what I'm really hoping for is more info on the other two, the boy and the grey lady. They were purchased from the U.S. and they could well be marriage salts as well that were separated from their partners. They definitely are not Bohemian glass, and they are different in glass and painting style from each other. The grey lady is also in fantastic condition, especially compared to the other three.

I would love any possible leads on later copies of the Bohemian portrait salts, any sort of style revivals, etc. or on the types of glass they might be.

Thanks in advance!

[flying free]

I love these salts
Thanks for showing them.

Just a question.  How do you know the two are definitely not Bohemian glass?

m

[CL]

That's a great question. I don't know for sure, but the glass itself looks quite different. The one with the boy doesn't have the same clarity when looking from the side as the couple does - in the photo I posted above you can see the "ripples" (if that's the right word) on the sides. You don't get the same optical effect because you can't actually see the boy's portrait clearly from the sides. To my knowledge, Bohemian glassmakers were known for their skill in making very thick and very clear glass, so I think it's unlikely that this is Bohemian.

The grey lady's glass has more of a grey/blue/green tint compared to the couple, and is slightly larger. To me this suggests a different mold was used in addition to a different glassmaking formula.

So - not impossible that they are Bohemian, just unlikely based on my research so far 

[flying free]

Would it be possible to post a clear close up shot of the picture of the lady and also the boy please?

Many thanks.

I'm just curious to see if they might look like any others I'd had in the past.
I did quite a lot of searching on mine so the info I found is on the board somewhere and that's as far as I got.

m

[flying free]

See also some more information I came across this evening.  I posted on this thread:

https://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,55531.msg402486.html#msg402486

[CL]

Here they are close up. Hopefully they're clear enough - I had to resize them to post here.

Thanks for including that link - those egg cups do look quite similar. The illustration of fragments found at the same site also look like our salt cellars. I'll have to take a close look at that article. I wonder how they determined they were egg cups as even in the photo they look fairly oval to me.

[flying free]

Perhaps our idea of an eggcup and what constituted an egg cup in 1800 is different.  Likewise the way eggs were consumed or stored on the table in 1800 may be very different in mainland Europe to what it was here in the UK. I've said on the other thread that my little bowls sit a medium or large egg in them perfectly.  I'm definitely on the side of them being egg holders rather than salts 

However I don't know what reference source the author has for knowing they are for eggs. 

m