Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: oyemicanto on December 30, 2014, 07:43:52 PM
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Hello
I recently bought this large Sowerby bowl and it came with a wide topped plinth.
I then bought on ebay a vase with the same pattern and thought if they were meant to be matched together?
Wondered if anyone had any info on this bowl please?
Many thansk Nigel
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I'm fairly sure none of these pieces are Sowerby. The Sowerby similar plinth has on two steps not three. The vase is unknown and comes in two variants
http://lustrousstone.co.uk/cpg/displayimage.php?pid=879
http://lustrousstone.co.uk/cpg/displayimage.php?pid=880
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I wondered if it was Sowerby as the stylised cabbage roses are the exact same as the float bowl for the stump lady.The vase you show I used to have if that shape aswell it's a stunning piece.
My bowl I am informed sometimes has a series of raised dots in the centre so wondered if it was to fit something in the centre.
Probably another to add to the mystery.
Thanks Christine
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There are quite a few unidentified pieces that have Sowerby features and Sowerby colours: this, for example, http://lustrousstone.co.uk/cpg/displayimage.php?pid=1538
I wonder if there is a whole load of Sowerby stuff that was commissioned and thus does not appear in the catalogues/pattern books. I don't know that anyone has studied the order books.
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I have often wondered that myself haven't seen any Sowerby books or literature
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Hi Nigel,
I have 3 of these large bowls in amber, pink and uranium They almost glow, and really have some presence in a collection. My pink and uranium bowls have the number 808160, which according to www.great-glass.co.uk were designs registered by Sowerby on the 23rd November 1935. The uranium bowl came with the plinth that you have shown. The uranium bowl has lugs in the centre of the base which holds the 'Flora' figurine (the one holding the flowers above her head) without any lateral movement at all. I believe the vase you have shown is a matching vase as it has the same diverging arcs at its pedestal that are seen in the the base of the bowl. I have the vase in pink and uranium. The pink one has the same wavy rim as yours, however my uranium one is flat across the top. I have a smaller 21 cm. bowl with the same design in the base as these large bowls. It has a similar design around the side of the bowl to the Flora bowl, with flowers and foliage, except it has 6 flowers, not 4, and every alternate flower is inverted. It has 12 alternating 4 cm. and 1 cm. convex arcs around the rim.
I hope this is useful information for you, and other readers.
Neil
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Thanks Neil thats great to know!
Wonderful news
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I see this bowl with 'Flora' figure and vase in the 1936 Pottery Gazette on Glen & Stephen Thistlewood CD-Rom of Sowerby Catalogues....not a very clear picture but definitely there. :)
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Hi Angela,
Yes, I have their Sowerby CDs, also.
That is where I was able to verify it visually, as well as having the Rd. number.
That page shows the vase that I mentioned in my reply to Nigel. Nigel's vase has a different undulating top rim. His photo shows it turned out slightly, but that undulating rim design also goes straight up, maintaining the line of the body of the vase.
Neil
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It's beautiful set but not seen as often as the other 'Roses' bowl...why would that be ? Would it have been an expensive piece perhaps ? Or just late in production so tastes changed ? I have seen Nigel's amber one and Sue at Black poppy has a gorgeous blue one.
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Angela,
I am thinking there may not have been as large a production run on them compared to the regular Flora bowls.
They are double the weight. The Flora is about 1.07 kg. and this larger bowl being 30 cm. Ø is approx. 2.14 kg. The raw materials used to make them would them at least twice the price, and far more costly. As some of these bigger bowls were made with lugs near the internal centre of the ibase, presumably, to stop the figurine moving around, and some were made without the lugs, perhaps those without the lugs might have been made to include the vase in the middle of the bowl, as shown in Nigel's photo. The vase certainly has the same, crescent shaped loops, at the foot, as the large bowl has in its base.
Walther had a couple of designs where this was done. One was the "Rudolph" bowl with a "Rudolph" vase inside (p.158 1935 cat.), and another was the cupped "Orla" bowl,with a vase having an attached frog, which Walther named, as a set, "Greta" (p.75 1934 cat.) The "Greta" Walther (aka VEB Sachsenglas) vases we see sold so much, do not seem to appear, in the most common catalogues available, until after WW2, when the glass was being made in the DDR, and exported to the west to raise foreign currency. This could be another example of a name from a 1930's design being reused on a more modern design.
Neil
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That would explain it Neil...I have never seen one in the flesh as it were, so didn't realise they were so heavy...will keep a look out for one now !