Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass Paperweights => Topic started by: Nick77 on March 22, 2013, 04:13:55 PM
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This is the first antique hand cooler I have seen in the flesh, I guess that many were damaged and thrown away as with no flat areas they would tend to roll off if put down on tables etc.
When I first saw the auction house photo on line I thought that there was an annealing crack throught the canes, but they have been made in 2 sections then ground flat and joined together. Many of these I've seen in photos seem to have been assembled as a sphere that has then been drawn into the oval shape which means the canes are very distorted, this method seems to have been used to avoid that. A bonus on close examination was to find the rooster silhouette in the base.
My thoughts are that this is by St.Louis but I cannot find exact cane matches, any thoughts?
Nick
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Close up of Rooster cane
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Hi Nick.
100% Saint-Louis as far as I am concerned. I bid on it, but it went for way more than I thought it was worth. Hand coolers and bell pulls of this shape are not common, but not that rare. This one, to be fair, was not the usual hollow blown scramble, but two millefiori scramble hemispheres joined together - hence the apparent 'crack'.
Alan
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Hi Alan
Thanks, I was pretty sure it was St. Louis but just couldn't find exact cane matches. This was my local auction, less than 5 mins drive.
Must say not having seen any come up before I thought it may have gone higher, perhaps I overpaid. It did have only fairly light scratches which are currently being polished out.
Nick
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Hi Nick
Looking carefully at your silhouette and comparing it to ones shown in John Hawley's book, I am not sure it is a rooster: I don't think anyone has ever recorded a Saint-Louis rooster cane. They did make a very unconvincing turkey cane, though, which it could be. Your cane is clearly distorted on the right hand side of your image, which makes it hard to determine what shape it was originally - I wonder whether it might even be a Saint-Louis dog cane?
Alan
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Hi Alan
It's away being re polished currently and I only took the quick photos I have posted here, I'll look closer when I get it back. I see what you mean if the left side was a head not a tail as I thought and the right side is the distorted back end it could be a dog or even a cat if they made one?
What book are you referring to by John Hawley as it's not one I have?
Nick
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Hi Nick.
The book is called 'The Glass Menagerie - A Study of Silhouette Canes in Antique Paperweights' by John D Hawley. It is on page 4 of the link below to a list of paperweight books.
Paperweight books (http://astore.amazon.co.uk/crosscountrys-21)
Alan
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Thanks Alan I'll look out for a copy.
I acquired a book recently Glass Paperweights by James Mackay printed 1973, some "interesting" attributions at the time, clearly Paul Ysart weights listed as "so called Stourbridge weights" what appears to be a French scrambled listed as by Paul Ysart and Baccarat closepack with B 1848 cane seems to be attributed to Murano. I guess things have moved on a lot since then.
Nick
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Hi Nick
Another interesting one is John Bedford's from 1968, issued shortly before Paul Hollister's book. Old paperweight books fascinate me - especially the changing story of attributions, and the tales of mystery and imagination that some contain. It is instructive to see how and when the 'antique Whitefriars' myth arose, and when the Russian plaques were first called 'Mount Washington'. I think a desire to sell items to buyers, rather than give accurate attributions, might have played a part.
Another issue that interests me is when Bacchus paperweights are first referred to as having 'pale and pastel colours'. Apart from being inaccurate (there are plenty of vivid coloured Bacchus weights), it seems to have first appeared in print in the mid 20th century - that is, 100 years after they were made. So I think that the originator (whoever it might have been) may have decided that certain pale coloured weights were Bacchus, and attributed them as such. Evangeline Bergstrom had a Bacchus weight, but she just called it 'Stourbridge' - so I suspect that the name Bacchus was not being used by collectors at that time (late 1930s).
I keep thinking that I should pull all this together, and write an article on it. I could also include how the commonly held views of paperweight history since 1845 (as expressed by authors in the mid to late 20th century) are over-simplified to the point of being inaccurate and misleading. It is just not true that few paperweights were made between 1860 and the 1950s, when Paul Jokelson started the 'paperweight revival'.
Alan
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Hi Alan
Yes this one lists Whitefriars paperweights as having been made since 1848, and also at that time only two Islington Glass Works paperweights were known.
I've only had chance to look through briefly. If you don't have it if you wish to borrow it at any time for an article just let me know and I'll post it.
Nick
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Hi Nick.
Thanks for the offer, but I have a copy amongst my 60 plus books and publications on paperweights!
Alan
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Nick said:
Glass Paperweights by James Mackay printed 1973, ... clearly Paul Ysart weights listed as "so called Stourbridge weights" ...
Nick, do you mean the one weight at the top of the colour plate on page 76? With an 1847 date cane surely it has to be Baccarat, not Paul Ysart.
Alan said:
Another issue that interests me is when Bacchus paperweights are first referred to as having 'pale and pastel colours'.
Alan, I was, today, browsing some older PCA Bulletins. In the 1959 edition, there is an article by J.P. Boore, on one of your favourite subjects: Some Little Known English Makers. He refers to The Art-Union Monthly Journal, Volume X, 1848 where, for Bacchus weights it was stated, "... some ... deserve special notice for their novelty and elegance". He then refers to "a more moderate appraisal of the late E B Haynes, in The Antique Collector, December 1953", in which it was said: Bacchus of Birmingham ... made a number of patterned millefiori weights, the best of which have definite merit. The colors are pallid and disappointing after cross channel brilliancy. But regard their pastel colors as a novelty and their restraint as merit, and you may perceive their charm and acquire a taste for them.
Whether that was the actual beginning of the "pastel colours" idea, I don't know. But it might save you a search through more recent history.
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Hi Kev.
Thanks. Paul Hollister reviews these various early references, and the 1849 and 1851 comments about Bacchus, though somewhat general, do not suggest the colours are pale or pastel - they talk of Bacchus paperweights being 'equal in colour...to the foreign works...'
I have E. Barrington Haynes 1949 book, and it is that to which I was referring as the mid 20th century book that called Bacchus 'pastel shades'. Although the author only devoted 3 pages to paperweights, he had done his homework. He also mentions Islington, and a paperweight with the marking 'IGW and a large horse silhouette'. That is probably the one now in Corning.
I think E. Barrington Haynes was a careful and thorough author with a commendable sense of reality. In the preface he says:
'...once a theory receives general acceptance it is almost impossible to eradicate it even when it has been utterly discredited'. Too true!
He goes on to say:
'It will be fair, then, to ask every student to read what others may have written, to hold their views in mind, but to accept nothing as completely true - not even what he is about to read here - if it should conflict with his own experience and deductions'.
I doubt that EBH invented the idea that Bacchus are predominantly pastel coloured. But I don't know where he got it from.
Alan
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Nick said:Nick, do you mean the one weight at the top of the colour plate on page 76? With an 1847 date cane surely it has to be Baccarat, not Paul Ysart.
Hi Kevin,
No the two black and white images on page 69 listed as Stourbridge look like Paul Ysart to me?
Nick
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Thanks Nick, the upper weight on page 69 with the "chequer pattern" is by Arculus. The lower weight is one I am less sure about but I guess is also Arculus but with an unusual pattern. On that basis, "Stourbridge-type" was a reasonable description at the time of the book.
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I agree with Kev - both look to me like Arculus weights. They did use complex millefiori in the chequer designs - I have attached an image of one of mine.
Alan
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Thanks both, I guess being black & white photos didn't help.
Nick