Glass Message Board
Glass Discussion & Research. NO IDENTIFICATION REQUESTS here please. => New Zealand & Australia Glass => Topic started by: dragonqueen on March 07, 2015, 10:40:46 PM
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This was described as a paperweight signed on top which seems a bit odd so I think it is really a very heavy small vase. Hoping someone can help identify the maker as it has a clear signature. Photos attached.
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Hello and welcome to the Board.
As you suspect, what you have there started life as something else - in this case a perfume bottle, now missing its stopper. The maker is Micheal Hook, an Australian artist who trained at the Jam Factory in Adelaide 1979-82 before working at Nick Mount's Budgeree Glass in Victoria and then setting up his own studio called Resolution Glass in inner-suburban Melbourne. I think he has recently closed the studio and retired from glass making.
I don't have a bottle in exactly the same design as yours, but the photos below show the general shape of yours and another bottle with some similar characteristics and which could well be turned upside down after removing the stopper.
It was rather creative of your vendor to invert it and call it a 'paperweight'. Usually they advertise a small bottle that's lost its stopper as a 'posy vase'. Here is one such example currently on ebay.au
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/MICHAEL-HOOK-ART-GLASS-BUD-VASE-PERFUME-BOTTLE-CONTROLLED-BUBBLE-SIGNED-/271556340453
Michael Hook did make paperweights in the same general design as your bottle. There are signed on the bottom in the regular way, as you would expect.
If I google for "Michael Hook glass" and then switch to 'images', I get lots of pictures of his bottles and paperweights. That may be because I'm getting the feed from Google Australia, but it may be worth your while to try it.
Thanks for a wonderful query.
Trevor
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The single trail of controlled bubbles is a give away as to Mr Hook's work too.
I have one of the same design in a teal inner colour... and all the parts to repair a broken stopper. Broken by someone who didn't afford sufficient protection against the mail system.
Any ideas where replacement stoppers may be had?
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Absolutely - Michael Hook perfume minus the stopper. As said the bubbles are distinctive.
Ross
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Thanks so much I obviously came to the right place as googling M Hook got me nowhere LOL Now to find a stopper - I'm sure the vendor did not know what it was because the price was so reasonable £5.70 was it a bargain?
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£5.70 x 2 = AU$11.40
+ ? shipping.
Probably cost a lot more to make it.
Reasonable price in terms of an Australian market context, and if your keen on the colour.
Good luck with finding a stopper.
More a matter of finding someone prepared to make a new one for it.
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Adding these here for reference, goblets with blue ball knops made by Michael Hook. A little over 16cm tall and lovely with it, looking forward to using them!
John