Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: Littleblackhen on September 24, 2009, 07:07:12 PM
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I bought this vase which was labelled as Mdina, but looking through Mark Hill's book I wondered if it isn't more like the tortoise shell pattern from the Isle of Wight glassworks? The light makes the sides look curved but they are very straight up and down.
The base is polished flat with a deep indent where the pontil is. I can't get my camera to focus on the base to get a photo of the pontil.
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Could we have a picture of the base?
Mike www.abfabglass.co.uk
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These are the best I could do. My camera is being very irritating, every time I get it in focus it takes itself out again just as it takes the photo.
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Have around 30 pieces of Mdina,can't find a mark like the one on yours most are smooth apart from this one,Keith.
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Looks very much like late 1970s Mdina to me, usually gets called tortoiseshell. The Isle of Wight Tortoiseshell I have handled generally has had more defined bands of brown and creamy brown. The remains of a pontil mark not completely ground and polished away is not that unusual for Mdina. I will hunt around my photos and have a look for some examples.
John
Photo 1: Isle of Wight Studio Globe vase
Photos 2&3: Mdina tortoishell vases
Photo4: Mdina globevase base
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Keith, your bottle vase does not look like Mdina production to me, can you post a photo of it in natural light against a white background? Regardless of who made it, it does look like an interesting bit of glass.
John
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Hi there
Keith i would have to agree with John, i dont think your piece is Mdina the base is wrong plus the colours are not any ive seen from Mdina or IOW glass
michelle
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Strange,Always thought it was Mdina,I suppose looking at the base it is very different to the other pieces,this is the best pic' I could get,it is only fractionally darker than this,Keith.
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Thanks Keith, I think it looks lovely but I have no idea when or where it was made. Is it cased (looks it) and about 10" tall 6" wide?
John
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Around 9 inches tall,thick with swirls,not cased,remind me of the mud/silt you find in rivers etc...only a nicer colour,Keith.
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:-[
I've missed this - wasn't "around" last September.
Both bits are early Mdina. I'd say the big bottle was definitely within the Harris period, the first three years, I'm not so sure about the cylinder vase.
However, don't get too excited Keith, I don't think it was Michael Harris who made these. Currently, the main speculation is that it might have been Joseph Said.
That crescent shaped pit in the base is fairly common, and the cloudy patterned big bottle, although the same shape is in Mark's book as being "later", when it's that cloudy sort of pattern, I think it's more likely to be during the Harris/Boffo period.
I've seen these, in an Earthtones pattern (a very distinct one) and in a similar cloudy effect in blue (I have one with a massive stopper). That distinct Earthtones comes along with both polished and ground round pontil marks, which was something not done after Michael Harris left.
My big blue cloudy bottle has a ground round pontil mark....and a crescent shaped pit, on a fully ground base - a (when I say ground, I mean quite roughly, as opposed to polished and shiney).
Finishes on bases in the early (Harris) period were very random - it all depended on somebody being available and having time to get it done. Before they got their own polishing equipment, somebody had to cart everything off to a polishers in town.