Glass Message Board
Glass Discussion & Research. NO IDENTIFICATION REQUESTS here please. => Malta Glass => Topic started by: Baked_Beans on December 02, 2015, 10:04:53 AM
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This amber bottle / carafe is very heavy and 13 1/4 inches tall. It has a square cross section body with a long neck . The square dimensions are 11cm by 11cm approx..
It has a bent/wonky looking neck which may or may not be a deliberate feature ;)
The amber and decoration looks similar to this..........
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,42409.msg235656.html#msg235656
and another example here.........
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,29332.0.html
There is no grinding to the inside at the top of the neck so it might not have had a stopper .
It's quite a monstrous beast of a thing !! Thanks for having a look. ;D
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Here are a couple of photos taken with flash which shows the patterning effect better.......
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:)
I'd say; absolutely MDG, rather than "possibly".
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Thanks very much for your comments Sue, I really hoped you would reply !
I've taken some downloads of MDG photos from here, (GMB) , so I hope it's o.k. to repeat them here....
The square shaped bottle in the background of your pic. may possibly be the same dimensions as this example ?
Also there is a yellow stretched-neck bottle (attenuated ) , shown here, (photo from GMB....can't remember which thread ! ::)) which has a similar working to the enamel.
This bottle weighs a staggering 1.7 Kg , fill it with wine and it would be a problem to lift it :o
What's going on with the neck ???
Cheers, Mike
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The first pic is one John took of my stuff when he was here, but there is no square shaped bottle at the back. ???
I don't know whose glass is in the second pic.
I've got a tall green attenuated bottle, with the grid pattern on it. :)
I thought at first there was no actual pattern in your bottle, that it was the more unusual cloudy swirling.
I have three cloudy small stoppered bottles - the blue, and the yellow in that pic, but I've got an amber one too. I don't think I've got a pic of that yet. I'll add it to my list.
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Ahh, sorry , I thought the bottle to the left of the blue one (at the back) was square shaped !
It will be interesting to see if any other examples of this bottle pops-up :) There is no grid pattern.
Cheers ,Mike
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No, it's just a very large round one, in an Earthtones grid.
No big stopper for it. :'(
I've got stoppers for my big green and blue ones.
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You do have a smaller, square sharped, blue bottle , in the foreground, to the left, so I think square shapes were a definite design feature for MDG ! I might try to fill it with water and see if I can lift it to my glass ::) !
Thanks Sue , very much ! Mike
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There's a small blue and a small Earthtones in square profile there, at the front.
The Earthtones one has the MDG Maltese cross prunt mark (with the v-notches in the wings) impressed into the base.
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Well I hope the dimensions for this bottle will help for future reference despite the wonky neck (possibly a design feature ??? )
Cheers, Mike
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;)
I suspect it is more of an annealing "feature" than deliberate design.
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Relatively few of these mustard colour MDG items seem to crop up, perhaps they were less popular at the time. Your photos with flash show up that internal pattern really well - it can be difficult to make out, a potentially useful aid for identification?
John
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Ahhh, so as it cooled down it turned into the " leaning tower of Pisa " and was sold as a 'designer carafe' or as a second ? judging by the weight , and slightly ..... monstrous appearance ..... , I would say a second.. or more likely an apprentice piece, but a pretty good one ! ;D
This link below , has to be the best example seen here so far ....surely ? .....(as mentioned above )...
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,42409.msg235656.html#msg235656
Ta very muchly , Mike ;)
P.S Thanks John got your message whilst posting this !
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I got one of them!
But I also have a small squat round pot with the same jaggedy lines in it, in amber, it would match your bottle.
(Battutto style base with ground round pontil mark.)
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Ohh goodness me , that really is the bees-knees ! It's even got the grid pattern going on :D
Thanks for showing it Sue !
Ta , Mike
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Rosies pic, Peter Elliotts stock, http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,46313.0.html
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Thanks Wolfie that was the thread I was thinking about and thanks too Rosie for taking the lovely photo and sharing it on the GMB
There is a better link to the photo here.....
http://glassgallery.yobunny.org.uk/displayimage.php?pid=16047&fullsize=1
You can just make out the MDG label on the yellow bottle next to the MDG green bottle , also with label.
Cheers , Mike
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Ah, I recognise the photo of that stand now.
I have the very small labelled green cloudy stoppered bottle and the green lollipop beside it. :)
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It's really good to take photos at these events ....very useful for research purposes !
I love the green bottle and the yellow attenuated one ;)
This MDG vase came today , amber with the same sort of decoration effect as the bottle which started this thread....not very well made as the rim is off-center and a bit wonky ...another apprentice piece. There is no ground pontil just a slightly matte base with plenty of 'battuto'.
It's 9.5 cm tall , last photo taken with flash.
This MDG art glass certainly varies in quality depending on who made it !
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Almost all MDG is wonky, so I don't think you can really say apprentice piece just very variable quality.
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Yes you are right Christine , I will refrain from using the word !
I hope another similar bottle will be found with or without a leaning neck feature ;D
Cheers, Mike
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If you look at the rim flanges on both your new globe and on mine, you will see that they are both slim and well made, not a sign of apprentice work at all. The globes too, are of a very pleasing "right-ness" in balance and execution.
However, training of apprentices was definitely happening - I have always assumed that fine delicate features, along with some clumsy ones, might indicate an experienced maker and an apprentice working together.
It was the Boffos who taught the workers at Mdina how to make elegant slim flanges.
Pre-Boffo, there were button rims and thick cup-shaped ones, or none at all.
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The leaning neck will be probably something that happened during annealing rather than blowing or shaping
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Thanks for your comments Sue & Christine,
I must say that the bottle is very well formed with an almost perfect circle to the top flange/rim... it's only the leaning which is a concern for me (if it's not a design feature ...which I strongly suspect it isn't )
The globe on the other hand has a definite , off-centre flange/rim which isn't a perfect circle and varies in thickness (unlike the rim of the bottle which is of a uniform thickness). The main body of the globe is very uniform and symmetrical in all respects though ...it's just the flange/rim which lets the piece down. The decoration of the amber glass in both the bottle and the globe is very, very good.
I've added some more flash photos... as the sun has retired for the night .
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Wonkier than I had thought. ::)
But still, quite a good attempt at getting it flat and slim. ;D
The sun up here retired for the rest of the year and beyond, some time ago.
Shaping a narrow neck and a wide slim flat flange is a complicated and difficult thing to learn to do with hot glass.
Does your bottle have any internal features that look like stretched applied foil on an internal surface?
My squat pot with the same trellis-like rather than mesh-like pattern does.
I am not going to call it zig-zag - that being the name of a scarce and desirable piece made by Mdina, and it will only cause serious confusion. Trellis-like for this pattern, please!
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Ha !
Yes , wonkey ;D
The bottle looks like it was rolled in a powdery substance and then scored with a comb and then a much thicker rod before blowing into a square shaped mould ...very difficult to describe but certainly cased in amber as all the powdery substance is more internal than external it would seem .
Difficult to work out how this effect was achieved ???
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The bottle (and the vase ) could have been made by taking a gather of clear glass, rolling in a powder and then trailing clear glass on top in a 'trellis' pattern , rolling it again ......then casing in amber (quite a thick layer, hence the weight) then blowing into a square-shaped mold (for the bottle). But I don't know enough about glassblowing techniques unfortunately !
Cheers, Mike