Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: chriscooper on June 19, 2014, 09:30:42 PM
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8" high 5" across the cup, sure it's early Boffo maybe?
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I think you could have safely put early in the title. :)
Lovely.
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Nice and early, the shape of the bowl gives that away. The amethyst used at Mdina could quite often take on these yellow tones.
John
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According to the book, it was "Papa" Boffo who put the knops on these large chalices. It was quite possibly made by both Michael Harris and Vicente Boffo. Impossible to be any clearer than that.
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hi Chris,
Similar one says signed by Michael Harris - not sure if colours are different or if it is just the lighting
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Michael-Harris-Signed-Mdina-Malta-Glass-Large-Goblet-/301220357464?pt=UK_Art_Glass&hash=item462221e558
Roberta
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The colours are completely different - the one in the ebay link is in the Rosenthal design - bubbly yellow background with random teal strapping marvered in.
The colours in the OPs posting are rather hard to make out as it has been back lit. I really cannot tell if it's amethyst or tortoiseshell or what. The shape is the big giveaway of the period it was made. Harris period early.
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Never seen a Tortoiseshell chalice, at least not that I remember, or a Tortoiseshell goblet for that matter.
This chalice is amethyst, the knopp gives it away. If Chris was to photograph it with a black background the amethyst would likely be more pronounced. This goblet had the same amethyst/yellow character: https://picasaweb.google.com/Johnmj100/EarlyMdinaGlass#5986126112385820546
Occasionally amethyst fish vases take on this amber hue just like the 'brown' fish vase shown on page 30 of Mark Hill's book on Michael Harris.
It shows up in this one too: https://picasaweb.google.com/Johnmj100/EarlyMdinaGlass#5752076461391603362
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This is my Amethyst one. It's signed by Michael Harris.
I don't think I've ever seen a Tortoiseshell one myself - but there is always the first time.
I have seen a goblet.
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So would the signed Michael Harris ones be of a similar time frame to Chris's one ?
Sorry, I know nothing about Mdina apart from having to stop myself buying some - Some of it I absolutely love and other stuff I hate - I suspect it is the early stuff I love! ;D
I have the one small piece - can't possibly start a new collection - eek - all that lovely glass out there :D
Roberta
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To my knowledge this shape of chalice (with the bell shaped bowl) was only produced during the Harris period.
I am completely in the dark as to whether or not Boffo might have made any between '71 and '77, but most chalices found with dates on are from the mid-later '70s ('74-'79) and are the smaller shape with the straight sided, flared bowl, rather than this bell-shaped bowl.
I do have an unknopped bell-shaped chalice made by Boffo - in Earthtones, but I do not know if he made it at Mdina or at MDG.
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It is amethyst John you are quite correct see it better from the inside the fuming (is that the right word) with no light through looks like oil on water.
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It's not fuming. That's a deliberate technique of a spray applied to the surface of a piece at the very end of production.
For the effect found on Mdina, Silver Chloride salts were used to add colours to the glass.
When it was all hot and inside the molten metal, the silver and the chlorine ions become dissociated, allowing the silver to react with the glass (the chlorine just escaped as a gas or might contribute to creating bubbles), and if the contact point between the moil and the metal got broken accidentally during the working, silver metal escaped from inside as a gas and became deposited on the outside of the piece.
This was discovered by accident, but would become something they incorporated deliberately, in order to achieve the lovely silvery bluey-yellowy effects on the surface.
Breathing it all in very probably contributed to the emphysema that killed Michael Harris.