Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: Lana on January 20, 2014, 10:43:54 PM
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I dug this out of a garden at a garage sale - cost $10. ;D Then when I got it home and washed the "ends" I realised the damage was somewhat more than I initially thought. :'( I took it to a glass cutter to remove some of the damage - he said it was too hard and sent me on to someone with a water-powered cutter. $80 later :-[ :-[ :-[ it looks like this. It's lost about 1.5 inches from the frosted top section which was initially (apparently) cut downwards with a diamond saw and several of these bits had broken. It still is a thing of beauty and the thought if it sitting in a garden bed as a rest for a hose was just horrible, so I am happy to have saved it. I can't get a good pic of the signature, try as I might, this was the best I could do.
I'm pretty sure it's a candle holder, origin unknown. About 50 cm across the top. Any info would be appreciated.
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Sorry but the photos are too small to see it. You can make them
Up to 125kb. Yours are only around 6kb. Can you load some better quality ones please?
Thanks.
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Hi and welcome. :)
How lovely to hear of somebody falling for and rescuing a bit of art glass from the obscurity of a garden bed!
You'll find loads of techie tips of posting and resizing images here. You'll just have to find the right set of instructions for the systems/programmes you use.
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/board,22.0.html
A good tip for photographing signatures on glass is to rub a little talcum powder over the mark and brush the excess off with your thumb. The talc will sit in the engraving and show it up.
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Thanks everyone :D. It took me a moment to work out the downsizing of the photos, but hopefully they are not quite so small now. I hadn't realised they were so tiny, they looked fine on my computer.
No talcum powder on hand to enhance the signature, but if it can't be recognised I'll go and buy some!
I'm somewhat of a hoarder of glass, quite a bit of it I can't identify, nothing as spectacular as this though.
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Cornflour? It's slightly finer than wheatflour, but wheatflour would still probably do the job. It can just be slightly messy if it gets wet, but it's still easy enough to clean off afterwards. :)
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Thanks Sue, have used the cornflour and hope this helps. Lana
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That's great - lovely and clear. But I can't read it. :'(
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I can see why you wanted to save it, is it solid?
John
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Thanks yet again. Ah well, I will just have to love it regardless of maker.
And John, yes, it IS solid. It's about 50 cm across and 6 cm deep. I nearly killed myself getting it out of the dirt.
I've included a close-up of the centre of it which clearly shows the candle holder portion. It's an odd size, too big for a taper and a little too small for a regular candle size.
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Just guesswork here, but maybe it was meant to be mounted on a metal support? (upside down)
Michael
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I was trawling through my book from Wroclaw museum looking for something else a few minutes ago, but saw something in it that looked similar to your find.
Slightly worryingly, it had "broken" bits that were supposed to be there! I hope you haven't fixed something that wasn't supposed to be fixed!
This IS a very long shot, I don't think it highly likely that a fairly recent major work of Polish art would end up buried in an American garden.
The name of the artist is Maciej Zaborski.
Things come up with a goggle search of images using her name - perhaps you might like to investigate some of the links that come up?.
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Hi Michael, it's entirely possible that it was meant to go the other way up. It is extremely heavy though and the support would have to be very strong, so I just don't know. As no-one seems to know what it is exactly I'll cut down the end of a candle and it will forever be a candle holder.
As for the damage, it was resting on the ends in the dirt and when I picked it up there was so much dirt embedded in the "forks" that I didn't realise how much was broken off. Definitely broken off as the remaining forks were very even in their finish. So now I sincerely hope they were broken off and I didn't destroy it, the breaks were pretty ugly looking. And thanks, I looked up Maciej Zaborski but don't think it is the same artist, but wow, what beautiful pieces. Is there any chance you can post a pic of the piece you saw?
Forgot to tell everyone it was in an Australian garden, so the Polish connection - Maciej Zaborski - may be even further away. There was a LOT of glass - primarily Scandinavian - at this garage sale. I also picked up a soda bubble vase (no label, no signature) and a pair of Whitefriars blue bubble candle holders, which fortunately WERE labeled, but I can't find out their design, together with some Iittala glasses which I could easily identify.
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Unfortunately, the photo I have is in a book. I could photograph that, but I'm not sure about the legalities of posting it here. I see you are messageable via the gmb, I could send you a pic. :)
You'll just have to wait a little until I can take it.
Apologies for assuming you were in the States! I think it was the use of the expression "garage sale", which I thought was an American thing. :-[
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That's okay, there are garage or yard sales all over and nationality doesn't offend me. In fact, it's Saturday morning here and I'm heading out in search of treasure. It's usually trash/rubbish/garbage, but I have found some interesting pieces. My husband keeps hoping they will find some medication to cure me.
I look forward to seeing the pic when you have time.
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I would have loved to have seen this as you had found it without the restoration, it's a massive piece of glass, i think it should be the other way up, is there wear to the centre section if it were the "other way up" and that being the base?
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Hi, no wear at all in the centre piece (for other way up) and no sign of any candle wax either. It balances perfectly on the "round" end and the signature is centre of the (now) base, but who knows how long it had been living in the garden. A mystery forever I guess.
I'm sorry I didn't take any pics prior to having it cut down, but it really was sad to see the "teeth" broken off and various intervals, I'm sure it can't have been on purpose, the rest of the piece is gorgeous and frankly it felt like a series of warts in the middle of Angelina Jolie's face - just not possible!