Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: peejyweejy on November 19, 2009, 03:25:57 PM
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Wondered if anyone could give me an idea of age, maker and technique used, I think it's engraved. It looks victorian to me, but not sure. :-\
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It's etched and not engraved, so may not be quite as old as you think
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Yes, i did wonder, I will have to brush up on techniques - I don't really know the difference.
Thanks, once again, Christine!!!
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I think its called bright needlepoint etching but i may be wrong ? i think i heard it along the way sometime .
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Hi John - how are you? Yes it is unusual, I have seen some etched glass as early as victorian. Do you think it might be victorian? PJ :-\
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Your drinking glass could be 1880 to 1920.
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Ooooo, that's exciting - why do you say that?
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Id say glass style is edwardian early 20thC , not sure about etching, its possible its
someone trying out their artistic side , sometime later, even recently?
Pretty though, i couldnt do it!
Andy
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what sort of wear is there on the underside of the foot?? Don't really like the style of the bird, looks a bit invented. Does the absence of a knop immediately under the bowl give the experts a clue to age?? and don't I recall something about looking at the edge of the foot for a hint of which period. Sorry I can't give answers to these things, but might jog someone else's mind. :) Paul S.
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There is some wear to the underside of the foot and plenty of striations on the foot. I do actually have three of these, so if they are contrived then someone went to a lot of trouble. I admit the birds do look a little primative though.
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If the three glasses have an identical etched decoration, then I'd be looking at Stourbridge. This is the sort of thing that John Northwood was doing in the late 19th Century.
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It's pantograph etching and became very common for glass at the end of the late 19th C when etching took off as a decorative technique for glass. The glasses could be from anywhere and any time well into the 2Oth C
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I particularly LIKE the primitive-ness and non-realism of the bird. I think it's very attractive indeed. Sorry I can't contribute more, but I felt strongly about Paul's comment. It's all a matter of personal taste, but I think this has artistic merit.
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If it's of any assistance, here's a few photos of a jug with similar (fanciful) birds. As the son of a twitcher, my husband dismissed the birds as impossible as well, but I like them. Excuse the colour - we have green walls, but the glass is clear.
The bottom of this jug has a very large, beautifully polished concave pontil. Does that help pin anything down?
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DEfinitely the same bird!
I think my theory of the etching being done later than the glass is probably wrong ;)
I suppose they are water birds ,storks maybe and ferns.
Interesting
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Same palm trees too. I'd say they were part of the same set. :thup:
The shape of the jug is very like some of those used by Chance, I've seen them decorated with the Calypto pattern, also with a lovely polished pontil mark.
I am aware that this may mean absolutely nothing.
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Hi Sue,
I hadn't thought of Chance - I remember now you said some of their jugs were heavier than the slumped glass. Where's David when we need him?
Wonder what the bottoms of the sherries (or whatever they are) look like?
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The Chance jugs were made elsewhere, and in at least two different unknown places. I'm not even sure that they decorated them.
Cathy's, though a similar etching to the glass, looks very jungly (get me out of here). I would speculate that it was made, or at least decorated, for the market down under. The problem with decorating is that it was not always done where the glass was made. You only have to look at US stuff. Often they ID the blank, then they ID the etch. Blanks were supplied to any number of finishers.
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The birds could almost be an inaccurate tilt at Kiwis?
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;D
Very inaccurate - kiwis are flightless!
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Thanks everyone for the input. Cathy your jug is very similar - I think the bird in flight looks more like a humming bird.
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Just found the Calypto jug by chance - totally different in my opinion.
http://www.pips-trip.co.uk/sold/sold-kitchenalia-2/showitem-CHA-CALYPTOJ2.aspx
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Kiwi???? Humming bird????
The birds are possibly a version of Herons of some type, but with a lot of artistic licence.
In the flying bird, the way the legs project well beyond the tail and are held horizontal with the toes pointing upwards is the way Herons actually look when flying. Also, the long bill and rounded head could tie in with that thought. But the outstretched wings look far too small in comparison to the leg length!
P.S. I am not a twitcher ;D
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I agree Kev, that jug is completely different, the shapes are inverted!
I'm now even less sure about what I said, though the use of both these shapes is not out of the question.
I was thinking more in terms of perhaps generic jug shapes having certain fashionable periods. The whole business of studying cold decorated glass is fraught with deciphering not only the maker of the glass, but the decorator, as well as perhaps a good time lag and/or a geographical distance between the two.
Will have to check with my wee brother about the Chance jug shape. Until I can do that, ignore me. Maybe my brain's inverted! :spls:
I don't see why though, that a fanciful bird should be based on any bird in particular.
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""Very inaccurate - kiwis are flightless!"" oh yes.........bet if you threw one hard enough it really wud fly thru the air ;D Think the only thing we can say with certainty is that the 'U' shape says it is definintely a sherry glass - and coming back to the stylized bird - reminds me of a vase I put on the board earlier in the year that had a very Hieronymus Bosch sort of bird image - I also withdraw the comment re not liking the bird - quite agree, too subjective. So, I'm going to go for Eastern Europe 1920 - 1940. Paul S.
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I love the Hieronymus Bosch sort of bird bit -they are pretty odd. And, yes, kiwis do fly if you throw them hard enough, tried it with an old "Kiwi" boss of mine. If I remember correctly, she bounced. Have found all the chat quite interesting :)
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Ah, yes, I do know that Kiwis are flightless (http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,25822.msg142757.html#msg142757) ;) ...
The suggestion was testing Christine's idea that the piece was etched for the Australian market. European depictions of Australian native animals, for the local market, can be distinctly weird! Most of the kangaroos ended up looking like crosses between greyhounds and rabbits, so I wouldn't have put it past them to make kiwis fly. If Christine's suggestion that it had been engraved for the local Antipodean market was correct, then the only species they could be was kiwis. (We do have herons, but they wouldn't have been recognisably ANZ enough to arouse patriotism.) Very little jungle in Australia or New Zealand either, for that matter. There doesn't appear to be anything like the piece in Australian Glass of the 19th and Early 20th Century, so it's unlikely to have been locally etched.
Kev's a keen birdwatcher, and I'd go with his suggestion of heron as the most likely bird. This implies that the piece wasn't likely to have been made specifically for the Antipodean market - do people agree? Kev, with your eye for accuracy, do you think the style of etch is similar enough for the jug and glass to have etched (if not made) by the same company? I always thought the jug was Stourbridge, just from the feel.
When I asked Paul what the birds on the jug were, he scoffed "physically and aerodynamically impossible", and refused to be further drawn. :)
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"physically and aerodynamically impossible"
Yeah, I agree! But that's pretty much what some folk said about bees, too!! ::)
As for my thoughts based on my "eye for accuracy" [what a lovely way of saying "pedanticism"] ...
1. The main motif of the decoration is clearly from a common pattern
2. The working of the decoration of the jug is of better clarity than on the glass.
3. The breast and underside of the birds on the jug are worked differently from those on the glass
4. The fern-like flora and the palm-like leaves show differences between the two examples
Therefore I would suggest that if both examples were made by the pantograph technique then it was the pantograph original that had the differences.
Beyond that, I have no idea.
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As for my thoughts based on my "eye for accuracy" [what a lovely way of saying "pedanticism"] ...
Oh good grief, did I write that? I was meaning something more like "eye for detail"! Sorry, Kev!
Thanks for comparing the two designs, that's very helpful. Will now go and google on "pantograph". :rn:
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Hmm. I don't think mine is pantograph etching (http://glassgallery.yobunny.org.uk/displayimage.php?album=667&pos=7&PHPSESSID=0c63c3ef09fa7f167a4346db5741dabf), as there are lots of little breaks in the pattern. I think it's diamond point engraved (http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/images/aria/bk/z/bk-kog-117.z). This would account for the differences in the pattern, as well.
Excuse the strange photo - I've taken down the brightness & bumped up the contrast in an attempt to better show the detail.
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Cathy, my glass is done in exactly the same way, same breaks etc. They are, without doubt, a match as far as I'm concerned.
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I have produced a single image of the birds from the glass and the jug with both reset to approximately the same size and the one from the glass boosted in contrast to bring out more detail.
This is just for easier viewing of the two together, which hopefully highlights both the overall sameness and the detailed differences.
Click here for the image. (http://glassgallery.yobunny.org.uk/displayimage.php?pid=12139&fullsize=1)
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How clever are you? The glass doesn't look as detailed as the jug. However, the engraving of the bird on the jug, I assume, is much bigger - but they must be a match.
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Thanks Kev, that's marvellous!
Clearly they are not identical - you need only look at the length of the beak to see that. So, whether they are from the same house depends on how they were decorated. If they made using any sort of etching involving a template (pantograph, for instance) then they are not. If they were hand etched, there's a possibility. My impression is that mine is hand engraved using a diamond point, but I'm no expert(!!!)
And that's just the etch - as Christine points out, the blanks may be completely different again.
This one is going to have to remain a mystery 'till someone finds a pattern book somewhere.
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Interesting couple of pieces! They are both plate etched:
1. the (negative of the) design is etched into a metal plate,
2. resist is rolled into the design
3. the resist is transferred to a special type of stretchy "paper"
4. resist then transferred to glass (in the negative of the pattern of the design)
5. rest of glass coated with beeswax
6. glass put in acid bath, etching the positive design
For different sizes/shapes of objects, it was necessary to make different plates, so they varied somewhat. Definitely a set! How interesting.
The jug looks very much like many that were made in the US in the 20s-50s, and etching was extremely common here. Likewise, the stem could have been made by any one of a large number of companies. It might be possible to pin it down to a specific maker if you're lucky. What's the volume of the jug (in oz., if possible)?
Or maybe it's English, who knows? This is a nice example of glass getting spread far and wide.
But then, the bird actually reminds me of a buff-banded rail, a common Australian rainforest bird. That would fit with the terrain. It couldn't be Aussie, Cathy? Or perhaps American glass imported and etched? Does it glow in UV?
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Hi Kristi,
Great to see you back here. Ah, so this is plate etched. Is that how Cambridge etched their pieces?
Thanks for the explanation, it helps a lot. I really don't think it's Australian, because you very rarely see this sort of work here, and Marjorie Graham would surely have mentioned it if it were.
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Buff banded rail (http://www.ozanimals.com/image/albums/australia/Bird/Buff-banded-Rail-1.jpg) has legs+feet that are too short to project so far beyond the tail in flight.
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The bird could be some sort of Heron - night heron?
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Went with the heron hunch and came up with the following link - scroll to first item. I know it's a different type of heron and probably an older glass but the technique seems similar.
http://www.patternglass.com/Store/CeleryVase/index.htm
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Buff banded rail (http://www.ozanimals.com/image/albums/australia/Bird/Buff-banded-Rail-1.jpg) has legs+feet that are too short to project so far beyond the tail in flight.
I thought we were allowing the designer some leeway when it came to the bird. When you look at it that way, the standing one couldn't be the same species as the flying one, either! This BBR (http://www.wettropics.gov.au/st/rainforest_explorer/Resources/Images/animals/birds/BuffBandedRail.jpg) is showing a bit more leg. Doesn't look sleek enough to me to be a heron or night heron...but artistic license and all, who knows?
Most of the etching done by Cambridge is plate etching. There were probably needle and pantograph etched pieces in the early years.
The jug looks very like the shape of Tiffin jugs. It's not an exact match with the ones shown in my book, but that could be because it's a different size. Hard to say, though.
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I'll have to dig out my Cambridge for comparison.
Thanks for indulging this discussion, everyone! :kissy:
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Just to let you all know that I met a lady at the Cambridge Glass Fair who had a couple of these glasses. She said the bird is a "cookaburra" which I believe is native to Eastern Australia...but that's all she knew.
Sorry....kookaburra :-[
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The tail on the etched bird is too short for a kookaburra, even the ones with a shorter tail. And the legs are far too long.
Earlier Kristi commented:I thought we were allowing the designer some leeway when it came to the bird.
Yes, we need to allow leeway, but there's a limit to how far things can be taken. If the etched bird was actually modelled on a real one, I think there is a great deal of leeway to be accounted for. :)
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:24: If it were made for the Aus market and those were supposed to be kookas, they wouldn't have fooled a local for a second. Kookas are about the most well known bird Australian bird after the emu.
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If the etched bird was actually modelled on a real one, I think there is a great deal of leeway to be accounted for.
Especially since the beak of the flying bird is about 2 1/2 times longer on the pitcher than on the stem, and the tails of the flying and standing birds are such different lengths! Who knows what the actual bird looked like if there is indeed a model for it.
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You could try typing bird and etch into the search function on here http://chataboutdg.com/forums/ They are rigorous about keywording and adding close-ups of etches
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Hello:
First, could a moderator please change the title of this thread to reflect the discussion? I am very interested in etched glass but relatively uninterested in antique drinking glasses so didn't read this thread until months after it started.
Second, I agree that this is a plate etched design. It is a little unusual in that has been polished to bring out the brightness.
Third, there are tumblers and at least one other size of pitcher available. Every piece appears to have a slightly different scene but the connecting element are the odd looking birds - one flying and one on the ground. The pitcher below is 7 inches tall with a 3.25 inch diameter opening. There is a nice polished pontil mark on the base.
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Hi Sid.........sorry about the title. When I posted this thread, as a newby, I knew very little about glass finishing techniques. I am a little more educated now.
Getting back to the glass, your close up of the bird seems to reveal some sort of tail tendril thingys....I wonder if this an attempt at a "Wilson's Bird of Paradise" missing all of its beautiful colour.
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Thank you Sid. The subject has now been changed as requested.
They're gorgeous, aren't they.
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I have a tumbler which has a bird chasing after a butterfly using the same plate etched method.
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m313/courtoak/SDC12260.jpg
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m313/courtoak/SDC12266.jpg
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That's lovely Ming!
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A very common bird found all over Australia(and Asia as far as I know.
Look at the Google image of a Rainbow Bee-eater and you will see the two trailing feathers are for control when catching insects in flight.
http://www.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://www.anbg.gov.au/gardens/visiting/exploring/fauna/birds/birds-cayley-300/rainbow-bee-eater-300.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.anbg.gov.au/gardens/visiting/exploring/fauna/birds/checklist-07/index.html&usg=__ISV68ponVbyFAlQ1ASrNHX4ZZg8=&h=338&w=300&sz=15&hl=en&start=14&zoom=1&tbnid=cr_14uQF_gicUM:&tbnh=119&tbnw=106&ei=X6LTTdq4FonYuAP41Iy6DQ&prev=/search%3Fq%3Drainbow%2Bbee-eater%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1572%26bih%3D919%26gbv%3D2%26tbm%3Disch&itbs=1
Ross
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Ahremck - that looks pretty close to me :)
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Here's mine to add to the discussion. It looks like a very strange bird indeed. With the fence and the disproportionately large flower and greenery - the bird was difficult to photograph as the pattern from the other side of the glass is also seen - those are the flower's petals not extra feathers. I always thought it was some fashion for things Japanese but made in England. Wrong?
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I think it is fair to say that several of us had earlier agreed, although with reservations about details and degrees of artistic licence, that these etched birds are not accurate representations of a particular species. (But I still think they are generally based on a heron of some type.)
For Ming's example shown above, Peejy mentioned "tendril thingies" and Ross commented on "trailing feathers" with a link to a type of bee-eater. As far as I know, trailing feathers, or tendril thingies, of most birds that have them are extensions of tail feathers. They do not sprout from below the body with the tail showing above them - which is how these mystery birds are shown. In Ming's example, there are certainly what appear to be legs below the body, but I believe those are actually parts of the background flora and the bird's legs are exactly as in the other examples. It's just an effect of having the bird set directly over background stuff, unlike the other examples where the bird is clear of the other elements.
Probably best to focus on the overall style of decoration rather than trying to pin things down to some country-specific creature. :)
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I have a small jug in the same pattern with the same two birds.
The jugs from Cathy B and Sid in replies #13 and #46 both have the handle applied from the bottom up. My small jug has a handle applied from the top down. Andy McConnell says the bottom up type handle “...became standard practice at British works during the 1870s”. Before that the handle was always top down. As the design is on a jug with the top down handle, it suggests a date for the design at least as early as the transition of handle type in the 1870s.
Mine has a polished pontil scar and is 100mm tall.