Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: chriscooper on September 05, 2010, 12:56:17 PM
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Not sure of the terms, should it be amethyst or aubergine in the Mdina world?
Is it Mdina? it isn't marked on the base. It is 3.5" high
Cheers
http://picasaweb.google.com/107067405711297858658/PurpleTrailedAppliedSquareMdinaVase?feat=directlink
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Early Mdina amethyst is a slightly brownish, more aubergine-y shade, often the brownishness is made more so by the patches of yellow which arise from the use of silver salts in the clear casings, the yellow plus the amethyst can sometimes go quite brown.
There is a post-Harris purple which is much brighter (more akin to wfs aubergine - as in the strapped Baxter pieces). This is what Mark Hill refers to as the colours becoming more "jewel-like" in his book, "Michael Harris: Mdina Glass & Isle of Wight Studio Glass".
There is another recent amethyst, which is much more of a deep purple :sm: - slightly more blue-ish. It's used in a densely splodged manner to create the appearance of black, (notably in the "Black and Silver" range). I've not seen it used in any other way.
This is a nice little strapped pot with the early, brownish amethyst colour used - does the colour have patches of different shades in it? It should have a stopper, but they're often missing, and it doesn't spoil the piece not to have it. The stoppers are clear, decorated internally with swirls of amethyst glass and often streaks and blobs of deep yellows and ochres from the silver salts reacting with the clear glass.
(I have to confess, I nicked the stopper from my one of these and put it in a bottle which benefits from it.)
When these and many other bottles were sold, I believe stoppers were maybe optional, possibly at extra cost, and they were made to fit most bottles - there is not a fit between the stem and the neck. I can't remember where I heard that and I have no evidence to back it up.
Basically, a stopper is desirable.
But unless there is a ground bit inside the neck of something, it is not neccessarily missing it's stopper.
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Hi Sue, thanks again for your helpful response, the 'clear' glass as a hint of green, if that makes sense? streaks of yellow and blue within the amethyst the inside of the rim is as clean and bright as the outer, not been ground for a stopper.
Really need to buy the Mark Hill book, my main problem is I used to concentrate mainly on Whitefriars, which has died a death over the last 12 months so had to expand my interests to different types of glass, actually been a breath of fresh air now the blinkers are off I am enjoying myself again and picking up loads of different types of glass, the downside is, with a quick turn round, and in order to keep the listings accurate I have to come on here and ask seemingly dumb questions :pb:
thanks for all your help :sun:
Chris
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In the early days at Mdina, the only base glass cullet they could get was fairly poor quality - it had to be imported, so it is often a slightly "poor" colour - though how poor can vary.
They had also not determined how to de-gas the metal in the pot fully, so it often has seedy bubbles and bits of frit in it.
However, one don't run around criticising da Vinci for painting with crude materials. :sm:
How's business?