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Glass Discussion & Research. NO IDENTIFICATION REQUESTS here please. => Malta Glass => Topic started by: Baked_Beans on November 05, 2015, 11:34:19 AM
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Thought I would post pics. of these two which have been signed by the same person . The 'M' in Mdina looks like an 'N' and the d has a distinct curl (like a Cumberland sausage) . The paperweight is 4.5 inches tall , has a circle of controlled bubbles towards the base and internally has a lot of red (ish) swirling. Lots of tiny bubbles throughout.
The earthtones vase (6.5 inches tall) is not a great example but at least they both have the same style signature.....I believe .
Anyway, might help, in some small way, to date 'Ndina' as a signature. My guess, mid-seventies...but could be earlier :D Thanks for having a look.
Cheers, Mike
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Another photo ..........
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Interesting and useful information Mike.... now I will have to get all my N/Mdina pieces out to see if any of mine are like that! :)
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This is a style of script I associate with '70s and '80s. It appears in this style in both a thick "dremmelled" sort of appearance (often on pink splodgy stuff as in trailed decanters with coloured prunt, produced in the '80s, but also in a diamond point etch.
(The slimmer line I asociate with '70s, the thick with the '80s.)
I did, once, many years ago, attempt to go through all the differing scripts, but gave up after identifying about 25 variations.
I suspect there are many different hands, all attempting to produce something similar - as would fit in with what we know about it being simply a matter of stuff getting marked only if and when there were staff, time and equipment to do so.
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Thanks Rosie & Sue,
It would seem to be a big old task to try to ID sigs. with age, as there are so many, and much would depend on shape and colours .
So I guess a broad categorization between thick and thin script will suffice ! ('80's/'70's respectively ).
Interesting that this script spans both broad 'dremmelled' and thinner diamond point though.
Thanks very much for the info..
Cheers, Mike
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P.S.
The 'N' looks like a ' U' too...in both examples .
Does anyone have a recognizably earlier Mdina piece with this script...or a much later one ?
Cheers, Mike
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This is the sort of script that appears on early stuff, (unless it's one of the really unusual ones, written by Dobson or Harris, both of which are recognisably different and individual).
I have not seen this style of script on later pieces.
Whether or not it looks like an N at the beginning, I think, might depend on the strength of the first stroke of the whatever-was-used-to-do the marking.
When I was going demented trying to differentiate between marks, it was all pretty much early stuff, and variations on this style.
Later scripts tend to be a lot smaller and often read "Molina".
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Thanks Sue,
So there isn't really a need to identify individual handwriting for 'Mdina' on earlier pieces.
It does look as if some sort of vibrating point was used in the above examples though ....both sigs. seem to have been made from a whole series of small dots. Later becoming much thicker as far as I can gather.
Ta,Mike
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Yes, it is often a dotted-ish slim line. :)
No, there is absolutely no point in trying to identify different scripts amongst these marks. ::)
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Cheers Sue !
This might be something of a faux pas to mix in a different Maltese glass company into this thread but here is a MDG glass boat/ashtray dating from between 1974-1978. (chipped/damaged )
It too has the same redish swirling going on . It's just turquoisey- blue & red streaks in amber base and clear cased. No green what-so-ever.
It does (however tenuous it may be ::) ) demonstrate that this redish 'streakiness ' was going on in Malta during the same period of time.
I haven't seen this before in a Mdina paperweight of this design or any other for that matter .....but that's not saying much 'cus I don't have a vast collection. :)
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:)
That is a completely different red and a completely different sort of red. Bear with me while I explain. ::) :)
At both Mdina and MDG, brown glass was produced by the addition of silver nitrate to red glass, (in a similar way to the yellows and greens being produced by the addition of silver chloride to clear and blue glass.
Silver nitrate does not, as far as I know, melt in the way silver chloride does.
It's a gritty black powder that burns everything it comes into contact with, and it soaks up water from the air. I still have an old lab coat I kept for using silver nitrate exclusively - it's full of tiny holes and burnt brown spots. ;D
Both silver salts are very expensive. (the chloride or the nitrate are called salts in chemistry.)
with Mdina - I do not think silver nitrate or silver chloride were used in the more mass production sorts of things. They were, of course, used in the paperweights which are in the Eathtones pattern.
In the boat thing you're showing there, it is a bought-in standard red enamel that has been used, not the reds that you see along with the browns in the streaky bits of Earthtones from both factories.
It's not a red that is left behind after its "browning" with silver.
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Ahh ! So the boat was a complete red-herring / - boat ::) I knew it was a faux pas....and now I'm certain it was ;D !!
So basically then , the early paperweight, featured above, has red streaks as a by-product of the reaction of silver chloride (or nitrate or both) with heat and nothing else. There is also a large (rain) cloud of white in there (towards the surface) another by-product of a silver salt reaction ; all the blue has broken up into a lot of small, separate patches with clear in between....looks like a whole load of large , spherical , blue frit !
Thanks so much for explaining all of this ....it's a huge help in trying to understand what is going on with these pieces .
Incidentally , I don't think the boat has any amber in it !! Having had another look , it seems that it is only red enamel ! The amber is just a play with the light...as is the green in the photo of the boat above :o !
Thanks so much !
Cheers, Mike
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P.S. I think the paperweight's unique appearance might be a result of over heating .... ::)
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I've just re-read my post - I had got my words in a tangle while editing. :-[
I wrote;
"with Mdina - I do not think silver nitrate or silver chloride were used in the more mass production sorts of things. "
It was meant to be;
"At MDG, I do not think silver nitrate or silver chloride were used in the more mass production sorts of things."
And (surprisiingly) it was red glass that was turned into brown with the use of the salts - any reds seen are the unaltered bits. Brown was desirable in those days. The reds are not really any sort of by-product. ;D
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Thanks Sue,
Well , I really got hold of the wrong end of the stick there then !..... ;)
Just to clarify then...the red in the Mdina paperweight is the same thing which is going on in the MDG boat ashtray ? The red streakiness does look very similar in both.
Sorry to labour the point and I realise it's not comparing like with like ::) ....It's due to my lack of similar Mdina examples.
Ta, Mike
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P.S. Here is a MDG ( Malta Decorative Glass ) paperweight , Earthtones pattern , red with added silver salts....as Sue mentioned above , last photo with flash...
There is some more here about this weight........
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,61158.0.html
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The red seen in the MDG boat ashtay is very, very thin , it spirals through the clear body like a wispy cloud , so does the turquoise blue colour. Both incredibly thin layers of colour. Both the red and the blue are bulk-standard glass colours used at MDG seen in blown fish, shells and solid animals (in the blue colour only so far for the animals...as far as I know ). My thoughts are that the thin red (red/orange...it's so thin) was the same coloured glass that was used in the MDG paperweight (shown above) and similar thin layers of red coloured glass were also used in making the Mdina paperweight (as above).
I don't understand what the other red coloured glass can be...if it is not this standard colour ? (I do realise the boat hasn't had any silver salt treatment ! ).
I would just like to get a grasp of how these items were made at both factories and to know if I'm missing a vital point here (i.e. being a numpty ! ) ? ;)
Cheers, Mike :D
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Ooops, I think I've grasped it now, the red is in the form of a powdered glass enamel (in the MDG paperweight above and the Mdina one)...I think ::)
I need to go on a glassblowing course !
This paperweight/doorstop on mine shows a combination of powdered glass enamel and frit .......
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,60416.0.html
Cheers, Mike
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I suspect I'm still in a tangle. Sorry, Mike. It's like lefts and rights - two things. I can only deal with three things, one being the mid point, giving me a reference to the others. If it's just one or the other, I can't remember which is which.
I now realise the red used in the thin layer in the boat might be the same red as was altered with silver nitrate.
I suspect I have said otherwise. My brain isn't doing well just now. I should just shut up! :-[
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Don't stop (please !!!) :D ....I find it all very fascinating...it's my fault for mixing in so many different variables into one confusing thread ::)
I was trying to get an approximate sort of date for 'Ndina' as a style of handwriting . I do think the first letter is a definite N and not an M.
I noticed that there were similarities with the red in the Mdina paperweight as seen in the MDG boat and the MDG paperweight and wanted to explore this general feature / technique ...for what it is worth.
Were powdered glass enamels used at Mdina/MDG during the 1970's ? Or is it a more recent thing....I had convinced myself that I was on to something :-X ?
I do have a Mdina earthtones paperweight which has a lovely brown onyx / marbled look and there is plenty of red streakiness in there :)
Ta 'n' thanks, Mike ;)
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Here is my Mdina earthtones paperweight from the same period of time with a thin signature to the base.
The photo doesn't really do justice to the marble effect created by the addition of silver nitrate to red glass but you can see some red streaks.
This paperweight being made with a solid clear core which was then rolled on some sort of powder to produce the creamy white . Then a long, stretched- out trail of clear glass with added red glass (very thinly stretched ! ) treated with silver nitrate was trailed around to form the wormy pattern . Finally being cased in clear glass.
So it was something like the Mdina knot (shown here) that was trailed onto the treated core of the weight.
It's thanks to this discussion that has enabled me to get a better understanding of earthtones at both MDG and Mdina ;D
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You've got it!
I suspect that it is a silver salt that is used to create the bubbly/creamy yellow, not enamels.
I do not know whether the enamels used were solid or powdered.
Trails of coloured glass treated with a silver salt, draped over the object in question, is a very common feature of loads of early Mdina.
The ice-cut multicoloured lollipops, the cubes, the "seaweed" pieces, the stripey bottles... ;D
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Whoopy ...got there in the end ! :-*
Incidentally , there are no red streaks in the Mdina knot (above, not signed)....perhaps silver nitrate wasn't used at some point in time due to it's poisonous nature (along with silver chloride).
Ta very much, Mike
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I'm sure I can see reddish bits in the knot - remember, it was red glass that was turned into brown, not the other way around - it doesn't seem logical now, but it made some sense in the '70s.
(A time when "sense" went out the window... and brown sneaked in while it was open.)
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Thanks Sue, (very funny ;))
I'm glad you can see some red....I'm a bit colour blind :o
I loved the '70's , that's why I'm so nostalgic about this glass...brown 'n' all ...along with TRex of course !
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I saw T.Rex, live at the Glasgow Apollo. I was all of 12 years old. My friends and I got a write-up in the Musical Express.
"It took all of three seconds for the teenagers, with stars all over their cherubic faces, to dissolve into spasms of ecstacy.".
My friend had interviewed the reporters sitting behind us. When she realised what they were doing, she decided to turn the tables on them. ;D
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What a great story...and you had stars ..very glam !
You were so lucky to have been able to see them live !!
'20th Century Boy' was my first record I ever bought 8)
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I've been lucky enough to have seen some pretty amazing concerts in my time. 8)
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I had no idea you were/are a rock chick 8) !
I've been taking a very long hard look at my three Mdina Earthtones pieces (four if you include the knot) and comparing the same effects seen on the white ostrich egg (see above link, unknown maker ) which has powdered glass enamel worked onto the white surface . There is lots to suggest that the red glass enamel was in powdered form at Mdina and probably also at MDG , so I think you were entirely correct in saying it was a different sort of red glass .
I think in some cases the silver nitrate powder was mixed very well (in the correct proportions) with the red enamel powder , which gives a uniform brown look and on other occasions the red enamel powder and the silver nitrate powder were deliberately left unmixed but combed through to give the marbled/ brown onyx look.
These are only my observations of course , and I could well be wrong....take it all with a pinch of salt or silver nitrate powder ! ;D
Cheers, Mike.
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Your observations and thoughts coincide with my observations and thoughts. ;D
I do love the stuff which is all red and brown streaky mixed - it's just like the proper old-fashioned "stained glass". :)
I suppose my big passion in life, apart from glass, would be music. Not remotely restricted to rock. I'm currently exploring contemporary classical. I had to give up dancing when I got sober - I fall over. ;D
We've gone a bit off-topic. I will stop.
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So pleased you agree... ;)
Music and art (glass included !) go hand- in- hand , sometimes one inspiring the other...some artists even paint to music :)
Apologies, GMB, for going off topic here , .... but you might be interested in this comment ......
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06mv4js
I don't agree with it one bit and you can't really dance to Beethoven ...which is a big point he is missing !
Cheers & thanks again for all your help, Mike
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::)
You haven't (and won't) see me in the kitchen. I can (and do, if nobody but the cats can see) leap about to loads of Beethoven sonatas.
And what about wiggling your bum to "Rage over a lost penny"? It was inspired by a bum wiggling around!
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Ooops, I stand corrected :-X :o , and I forgot about ballet too >:( ;)
They say that music is the highest form of art as it affects our emotions & soul more than any other .
As for music and glass combined ...Church organ music , song and magnificent stained glass windows :D
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And not forgetting Alison Kinnaird MBE, who combines glass and music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naDhv43vsDA