Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: Pinkspoons on July 29, 2008, 04:26:39 PM
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I don't often buy speculative items these days (only really having the spare pennies to buy what I know about), and I really don't usually buy engraved glass.... but I was very taken with this wee vase. I don't really know engraving, but the quality looks to be very good (to my eye), and very detailed. It's also very deeply cut into the vase, casting some lovely contour shadows.
It measures just 115mm tall (4.5" in old money), and has solid silver foot and collar, hallmarked for London 1920. Sadly the maker's mark is rubbed, and all I can make out is '...& Sons', preceded by two or three destroyed initials.
Any idea on the glass-maker? (or the silversmith, if you're really clever! ;D)
PS: I've kept the image very large (1500px tall) to show the detailing better, but it's web optimised so shouldn't be a chore for folk with slower connections.
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Oh, and the clearest shot of the maker's mark... The first initial looks to have a straight left edge.... so a D or B, I think.
Well even if the maker can't be found, at least it's given a fairly precise date for the vase itself.
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Not usually one for adding superfluous photos, but the engraving in my first post looks flat and lacklustre, so I reshot a close-up with better lighting.
The motif itself is just under 50mm (2").
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It's beautiful Nic :clap:
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Gorgeous! Definitely worth the speculation. (I tend to buy some things out of sheer curiosity, but then I don't have to make a living out of it.)
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Thanks for the comments. :) The skill that went into the decoration amazes me. Some of the detailing strokes - on the feathers, for example - are less than 1mm in length.
Have been busy cleaning the silver parts of the vase. Not my favorite task!
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Very nice piece! Well executed, detailed engraving. Cupid as a gardener, I love it. I, too, am very interested in knowing the maker. I feel like I should have some WAG at least, since engraving is my thang, but I haven't a clue. My knee-jerk guess is Thos. Webb, but that's from lack of other ideas for something like this in 20s England, so it doesn't really count.
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My first guess would be a coin-toss between Thos. Webb and H.G. Richardson, but favouring the latter.
From what I've seen of Webb's glass of this era, it seems to be very traditional and busy with cut borders and such, whereas I've seen a few Richardson pieces from around the same time that utilise a more stylised 'Scandinavian' vernacular, which this vase has some of - especially in the flowers with their geometric art deco twist, and in the lack of any other decoration.
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My first guess would be a coin-toss between Thos. Webb and H.G. Richardson, but favouring the latter.
From what I've seen of Webb's glass of this era, it seems to be very traditional and busy with cut borders and such, whereas I've seen a few Richardson pieces from around the same time that utilise a more stylised 'Scandinavian' vernacular, which this vase has some of - especially in the flowers with their geometric art deco twist, and in the lack of any other decoration.
Ah, I knew you'd have a better idea than I of its origins. Thanks for your impressions about the differences between Richardson and Webb during that time.
Thanks, too, for posting a large photo of it. And your second photo is anything but superfluous! With glass like this it's so nice to be able to see the details.
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Ah, they were just blind guesses based on the small selection of glass I've seen whilst trying to hunt out a maker for myself. Another thought is that the glass was imported from one of the Scandinavian countries to be silver-mounted here. I've found some examples of Holmegaard glass bearing English silver mounts in the past, so I'm assuming it was also done with the output of other factories.
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Lots of Bohemian glass had silver finishing done in the UK, presumably it was cheaper. Also, many jewellers would commission glass to which they would add the silver.
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I was just flicking through a recently acquired copy of 'Victorian Glass' (V&A Museum, 1972) by the fantastically-named Betty O'Looney, and this has some wonderful mid-late C19 English engraved glass with designs attributed to Bohemian immigrants working in England. Engraved glass is a total minefield when it comes to attributing makers and designers, it seems, as so many hands in/of more than one country can play a part. This is why I don't often venture from my fully-signed Danish glass, I think. ;D
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In this case, an ID probably doesn't matter too much because it's such a lovely piece
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This is true, theoretically, but I have my own obsessive need to find out everything I can about everything I buy. ;D
I have items that have been packed away in the attic for 3-4 years, never to see the light of eBay or my website, purely because I could never find out anything about them. Oops. :-[
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I'm the complete opposite with a lot of my stuff. I'll have a bit of a look and then not bother any more, particularly as so much of the stuff I buy for me is late 19C early 20C.
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Flicking through some glass books a touch out of my price-range at a fair last week I spotted some very similar forms depicted, sans silver mounts and with different cut / engraved designs, by Stuart and attributed to Ludvig Kny. So another avenue to investigate. ;D
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Hmmm, I may have found a good clue! Check this out:
http://www.proxibid.com/asp/LotDetail.asp?ahid=615&aid=8057&lid=2352256
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... a good clue! ...
Remarkable! — and that is a gross understatement of the importance of your find, Kristi.
I've counted at least five different matching points of detail on the cherub. One or two could be dismissed as coincidence. Two or three could be "school of", i.e. same training or the same team. But five has to be the same brain. What swung it conclusively for me were the slightly too flexible forearms.
Bernard C. 8) :clap: :clap: :clap:
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Wow - fairly conclusive, I would say. It looks like these designs were part of a series. Thanks so much.
I did a quick Google for E. Michel and came up with the following... and, oh my goodness at the hammer price: Christies (http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=1548045)
So we have a name - Eugène Michel (1848-1904), and he was a designer for Rousseau and Leveillé.
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I don't suppose a kindly mod could tweak the title to include Eugène Michel? Might attract some of the French glass experts. :)
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Wow, that one at Christie's is phenomenal! What a fabulous engraver. Congratulations!
Sheesh, $20,000 in 1999! I would expect yours to be worth closer to the Woody auction one because of the size and less complex engraving, but $650 for a 4 1/2" piece is pretty dang good, too. Plus you've got the silver accents. It's a beautiful piece.
It's so nice to be able to help someone with an attribution for a change. Sheer luck.
A short blurb about Eugéne Michel from Ricke's Glass Art, Relections of the Centuries doesn't add much to what Nic just wrote:
Eugéne Michel
(1848-1904)
Engraver
After working at the Parisian decorating studios of Eugéne Rousseau (from about 1867) and probably also of Ernest Léveillé (from 1885), active in Paris as an independent glasss artist from the mid-1890s.
Shows a magnificent cameo piece with water lilies and irises. The blank alone is fabulous, with a crackled layer between the others - something I haven't seen (or noticed, anyway) before.
Another of his works is shown in Neuwirth's Das Glas des Jugendstils, but there's not much add'l info. Born in Lunéville, Meurthe-et-Moselle. Took part in Salon de Paris in 1903, and in the Exhibition of Artistic Glass and Crystal, Paris, in 1910 (posthumously, apparently).
The Grovers in Carved and Decorated European Glass say, "His production is extremely limited," but also call him Edward rather than Eugéne. They do point out that there's cameo found with a signature "Michel, Nancy" but that it's a different Michel.
Evidently he's quite well known, if I can find him in at least three books from my little lib'ary!
Nic said,
I have my own obsessive need to find out everything I can about everything I buy
I'm the same way. Can get mighty frustrating!
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Thanks for all that - added a lot more information to the pile.
It's okay, I wasn't expecting my vase to be worth anything like the Christies vase, although I can dream... :sleep:
But he does seem to be well-known. The varous book blurbs, reviews and write-ups I found on Google seem to all mention him in the same breath as the French greats of the period.
I'm contemplating removing the silver-mounts as they were, if the dates all tally, added 20-25 years after the vase's production. Bernard, in an email, raised the issue of silver-mounting often being used to cover up damage to the glass, but these have been added for purely decorative purposes by a previous owner so I see no reason not to take it back to its original state. The top mount is just pressed on and reveals no damage when removed, and one can see nearly all of the vase contained by the base mount - again, with no damage. I'll have to enlist a jeweller to remove this mount, though.
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I had the silver mount removed today - no damage underneath (phew!), but also no signature... which is rather frustrating.
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Nic — A signature doesn't really matter that much, and it might be a rare unsigned example of Michel's work.
Any chance of a photograph, please? I would like to see its proportions au naturel.
Bernard C. 8)
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I should be taking a few photographs this weekend, if some new stock I've been expecting arrives on time, so I'll toss it in with that lot.
I think I actually prefer the proportions with the mounts, but that might just be down to the fact that I'm so used to seeing the vase with them on. But the diameter/height of the base is identical to the one in the Woody auction (one of the first things I checked, to make sure nothing had been sheared off or ground down). It seems whomever owned the vase in 1920 also disliked the proportions.
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Sorry - this completely slipped my mind. Just snapped this image on my lightbox (so it was photographed laying down, and from the reverse - only way it would stay in place - hence backwards motif).
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Much nicer without the mounts ;D
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Great image too!
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Yup, that's a beauty! Looks like it's floating on air!