Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: rocco on December 31, 2010, 03:36:00 PM
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I own this one quite a while, haven't been able to figure out what it is...
Massive square bowl / ashtray, very heavy, 19 x 19 x 5 cm, made of clear (slightly green) glass, upper side smooth, bottom and sides with abstract structure.
Have searched for an impressed signature (thought of Peill and Putzler), but couldn't find anything.
Thanks!
Michael
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Can't help with id, but can say it looks very much as if it's cast.
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Thanks for your suggestion!
My guess would also have been that it was cast in a structured form, and then the upper part worked by hand (?).
But I am still not very familiar with glass-making methods...
What irritates me with this item is the light green hue of the glass -- not very typical for these icy-looking designs...
Michael
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I've seen quite a lot of modern cast glass with that greeny tint.
I think it may lend support to the idea that it is fairly recent, and it might help a little bit to narrow the field of research for a maker.
But I'm also wondering if it may be a studio maker rather than a big manufacturer?
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It may well be recent, I really have no clue here. But the abstract pattern does look somehow 70ies to me.
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I think I've got this right.
The green tint is typical of a batch of glass containing too much iron oxide. It is usually more visible in thicker finished pieces.
You get rid of it by adding manganese, but, if you add too much, you can turn it purple, instead.
A green tint is often seen in older pieces, too.
This piece was probably cast in a sand mould, with a wet wooden block pushed into the surface of the still-molten glass to create the hollow. I made a few things like this on a weekend course, a few years ago. I suspect it could be a student piece, especially given the quality of the glass.
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Yes, but contemporary window glass is green - and a lot of sculptures are made using this sort of glass - either from cut bits put together, or cast.
(I'm pretty sure it's the same stuff used for casting - it's the exactly the same colour - but as I'm not fond of it, I don't really tend to study it - more note it in the passing.)
I would tend to agree that your last comment could well be the case Chris - but again, it's not my sort of thing, so my judgement could be poor.
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Thank you very much for your opinions on this!
If you are right and this is some sort of student's work, I guess it will be impossible to find out what it is...
I was only curious if it could be identified (I bought it because it was very cheap and had that 70ies appeal I like)
So this will probably become a nice birthday present one day :)
Michael
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Sorry: I thought looking only at your first picture it looked like Boda 3231, so I posted, went back and looked at your photographs, adn realized by mistake. They have very different bottoms.
David
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"contemporary window glass is green" ??
Sorry, Sue, what do you mean by this?
I know folks who buy boxes of float glass for use in a flat bed kiln (slumping it around metal or organic inclusions). I've noticed that some of that has a greenish tinge after slumping, but I put that down to being cheap imported glass, rather than the higher quality glass made by Pilkingtons, etc.
Is that the kind of material that you're referring to?
All my experience of casting has been in a conventional glass shop, using a blob of glass gathered from a crucible on the end of a punty rod, and then sheared off into the mould. I assume that's different from what you're saying. Always willing to learn...
Cheers,
Chris
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Hello Everyone,
I am probably way out of left field here but when I looked at the photos Michael posted, I thought his ashtray was very similar to a fruit bowl I have; same colour, similar square shape with the same rounded corners, the same size 19cm square, same smooth inside and textured outside: although the thickness of the glass of my bowl varies and at its thickest about 1.3cm to a less chunky .8 cm. My bowl was new about 20years ago and had a "made in Japan" sticker.
Cheers
Megan
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Yes, Chris, it's the float glass which gets slumped I'm referring to - it's very green if you look at it through the thickness you get from the edges - but there's also the green stuff used by Portmerion, to make bubbly square or rectangular plates - I may be quite wrong in assuming this type of glass is also used for casting. :pb: Perhaps I'm even confusing slumped and cast sometimes - not my favourite stuff, really. I don't like that green.
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Ah yes, I think you are getting the two mixed up.
As a very rough guide...
When you slump, you take solid pieces of glass (or fragments, or existing objects, such as bottles!), position them in a kiln (sometimes over a mould - as with the Chance handkerchief vases), and heat them until they melt (900 degs C or more). Then you switch off the kiln and leave it - and the finished object - to cool down evenly so that the glass anneals. In a commercial glassworks, the slumping kiln is usually open, so that workers have access to manipulate the pieces: for example, to push the slumped glass deeper into the mould, to get the precise shape that is required.
When you cast, you take some of your source of molten glass and pour/drop it into a mould, quickly do anything extra to it (such as make the hollow in rocco's ashtray in this thread) and, when it has firmed up, move it to an annealing oven (lehr) and leave it to cool (usually overnight).
You can buy glass kilns and moulds for use at home (not in the spare bedroom, I hope!).
http://www.warm-glass.co.uk/
http://www.kilns.co.uk/
etc
Float glass is deliberately made with a greenish tinge for windows, I've found out. My grandfather worked on a float glass bed at Pilkington's Cowley Hill Works in St Helens in the 1960s. Don't remember any of the glass being green then, unless it was deliberate "cathedral glass", so it's probably a fairly recent development.
"Green glass can not only absorb the heat but also reflects the infrared up to approximately 40% which can lead to a dramatic reduction in energy costs. Its pleasing greenish colour can reduce the transmission that results in unwanted glare and discomfort. Green glass reduces the transmission of ultraviolet light and subsequently minimizes the colour fading to furniture and flooring."
[from the Guardian Sunguard web site]
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>:D
I would take issue with the "pleasing" aspect of the green, but Portmerion definitely used it to make very bubbly plates - used to be able to get them cheaply in tkmaxx. I couldn't tell if they were slumped or cast - often the outcome can be similar - (I can tell the difference between eg Chance slumped glass and cast stuff).
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Me, too!
Especially when I've had it beaten into me over the years that pieces with a greenish tint contain too much iron, and are sub-standard.
Were the Portmeirion plates heavy with lots of tiny bubbles and a striped pattern? If so, I think they are factory-pressed, possibly using recycled glass.
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No stripes - just loads of bubbles - some of them quite big - up to nearly 1cm in diameter. I searched, but couldn't find an image. I thought the bubbles might somehow preclude any pressing - many stood proud of the piece.
As a collector of early Mdina I've learned to ignore that lesson about tinted glass - they were only able to get hold of somewhat poor quality clear glass early on - you have to look past the material used and at what the artist was doing with it.
After all, you don't dismiss da Vinci for not using acrylics.
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Not seen those plates, so can't comment. No photos of any on the Web, as far as I can see.
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Thanks all, this has become quite an interesting discussion beyond my glass bowl :)
What I can say is that the green colour does make this piece to me a little less valuable...
Michael
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While doing a search for Ruda Glasbruk (because I bought a very nice candle holder today which I was able to ID myself ;D as Göte Augustsson for Ruda), I came across another thread here: http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,879.msg26435.html#msg26435 (http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,879.msg26435.html#msg26435)
This is the closest I have seen to my bowl/ashtray. So maybe Ruda? The greenish colour still seems a little strange for Scandinavia...
Michael
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While searching for my newest Scandi-ish vase I came across this: http://www.tradera.com/Stort-Fat-Ruda-auktion_341198_130224094 (http://www.tradera.com/Stort-Fat-Ruda-auktion_341198_130224094)
Looks exactly the same, and the size is a perfect match, too.
I think we can safely assume mine is Ruda glasbruk as well then...
Which means it was made before 1972 when the company ceased production.
One less on the unknown-list! :rah:
Michael
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Hi Michael,
It's worth being very wary of auction identifications without further evidence. It most likely is correct, but without knowing who the seller is, without a label it's impossible to know for sure.
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Cathy, thanks for your comment! You are perfectly right, it still should still be taken with some precaution...
But as this comes from a Swedish site I do trust this attribution a little more.
BTW, here is a labeled Ruda vase with the same pattern as my bowl: https://picasaweb.google.com/exat53/Q#5188702471804859970 (https://picasaweb.google.com/exat53/Q#5188702471804859970)
Let's hope that a labeled example of my piece will turn up one day!
Thanks
Michael