Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: Cathib on January 18, 2017, 12:40:23 PM
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I have a glas with the royal cypher on and the initials CR with 1646 on; on the bottom of the glas is a trademark I presume, which is Rd 75175.
Could anyone tell me who made this and when please
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The registration number 75175 was dated 9th June 1887 by W. P. & G Philips (sic) London, Glass Maker. Design is stated as a Shape of a jug in glass or china.
I am unfamliar with the initilals I assume the other number is the factory pattern number but I could be wrong.
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There is some advertising material regarding this manufacturer in the graces guide
http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/W._P._and_G._Phillips
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hello Cathib - welcome to the GMB.
Regret I don't off-hand have a picture of the Board of Trade Registration No. 75175, but can acquire this when next I visit TNA at Kew. People here always like to see a picture of your glass item - partly out of interest, and partly as we have a member who is compiling a very useful encyclopedia of pressed (mostly) glass designs together with their corresponding Registration Nos.
From around 1842 until early 1884 designs were Registered with the Board of Trade, and the finished product usually carried a diamond shaped lozenge which contained a combination of numbers and letter from which it's possible to decipher the maker and date of Registration. After Feb. 1884 the diamond was dropped in favour of simply showing a four/five or six digit number similar to yours, and preceded, usually by the letters Rd. or Reg.
This No. isn't a trade mark........ trade marks are such things as small images of company names or invented devices/logos used by a maker to protect their designs. Surprisingly, according to Ray Slack, only five pressed-glass manufacturers in the C19 used a trade mark on their glass - Sowerby being the best known probably, and their trade-mark is the peacocks head.
Regret I don't know what the 1646 means either. Between about 1840 and the end of the C19 there were quite a few Registered Designs for pressed glass tumblers, which is possibly how your piece has been made, although alternatively it may have been blown - can you see any mould seams on the side of the tumbler? and does the underside of the base show any grinding or polishing of the glass where this might have been needed to finish the glass after manufacture.
I'm unsure of what exactly you mean when you say royal cypher - do you mean simply VR??
This design may well have been both CLASS III and IV - glass and ceramics - it does happen on occasions. The comment that this "Design is stated as a Shape of a jug in glass or china" is, on the face of it, at odds with your comment that this is a tumbler, so hoping you will do your best to provide a photograph of your glass. Of course if we had the Kew image that would help.
Sometimes a Registered design is for a type of decoration rather that the shape, and in the C19 some manufacturers were known to produce an entire service of shapes, each carrying some element of the original Registered design.
Finally, the date of any Registration doesn't mean that was the date the glass was made............... it might be, but unlikely since most Registered designs had a shelf life which continued for some years, and some examples of Registrations are known to have been made many years after the date of Registration.
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Thank you for you reply. Since then we have found a website that shows us the glass and a bit of history, it seems the glass I have has been cut down at some point in its life.
www.antiquecolouredglass.info/British%20Glass.htm
I have tried to upload a picture but the file is too large will try again
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I may well have misunderstood the text accompanying the left hand image in your link - which seems to be suggesting that Registration 75175 "refers to shape only".
Registrations were given to protect either a shape or, less frequently, a decorative pattern - either pressed or cut. From what I can see in the Kew image on the right side, it appears that Rd. 75175 covers both the leather bottle shape and the standard water jug shape - plus of course the tumblers - all of which would suggest that 75175 was issued to protect the engraved decoration, rather than any particular shape.
These items, together with the engraving, appear to represent commemorative pieces.
You don't explain why you consider your tumbler has been cut down, so would appreciate some information please - and would also ask if you can explain how the Rd. is shown on the tumbler - is it in relief or is it written on paper only, or perhaps engraved into the base? Your link gives a height of 9.25", which presumably is for the glass copy of the leather jug - am sure this would not be for the tumblers.
So that the Board can save and use the Kew image of the original factory photo (sepia by the looks of it), I will visit TNA in the coming days and take a photograph that can be watermarked and kept in the GMB archives. :)
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Cathib, welcome to the board. If you can't manage to resize the image please take a look at our help and howto topic for images here: http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,34093.0.html - if you still can't get it small enough feel free to email me copies to glass AT yobunny.co.uk (change AT to @ and close up the spaces).
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Hi Here is a picture of the glass, I think it has been cut down because the very top of the crown appears to be missing
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yes, it does appear to have shrunk in height. Another possible indicator of that fact might be that the top rim will show as having been ground flat, and possibly slightly bevelled, rather than the original fire polished 'rounded' profile.
Bit of a shame since I'd imagine this is a less than common item and this will have almost certainly reduced its commercial value. Glad to see you finally managed to post a good picture. :)
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I'm fascinated that in the 1880's a glass manufacturer would produce something to commemorate Charles surrendering to the Scots in 1646 and the end of (only) the first English Civil War.
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I'd agree............. lots of pieces commemorating Victoria or other C19 luminaries in some way or other, but this subject very unusual.
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It's not as if folk were not making "fakes" in the past. ;)
Anything to do with the Jacobites was considered valuable, even in 1880.
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Some pix from TNA at Kew which we can now legitimately keep for the Board's archive - although as we were already aware the originals were sepia photos, and disappointing end result as these things don't make good subjects for re-photographing.
Having now seen the original pix, I discovered some faint pencil instructions written at the top (possibly just visible in my picture) but almost certainly unreadable now. The wording says.... "Crown, letters and date to be removed" ........ and this is typical of the type of wording used, by a Registrant to the Board of trade, when they wished to indicate what part of the image was not to form part of the Registration .......... thus implying in this instance that the cut decoration was to be ignored.
This situation brings us back to the comments within the op's original link - stating that this 'Registration was for the shape only' - which is fine, but makes for a bit of a dilemma insofar as there are two shapes involved. So having stuck my neck out earlier on and commented that ........ as there are two separate shapes (more if you count the tumblers), then the protection had to be for the engraving since you almost certainly can't protect more than one shape with one Registration only ............. I'm now confused, since the original pix appear to state that the decoration was to be 'removed' from this Registration. :-\
Enlightenment please from someone.
P.S. this Rd. No. omitted from Ray Slack's list of Registrations, presumably as it didn't qualify as pressed glass.
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I was wondering if there was a specific time for these things but I guess this vase is 1880's?, well after the tumbler.
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gosh, what a gay looking Cavalier.......... Assume from your caption name Julie that your bulb vase is British in origin.
In fact the date of Registration of the op's item I think was 1887, so contemporary with that of your vase, so unsure of the meaning of your comments.
An historic commemorative item such as this was very unusual for the second half C19 - most items of a commemorative nature - and there were many of them - related to contemporary C19 British subjects and royalty.
Does the image on your vase have some Dutch connection do you think - re the bulbs etc., it reminds me of the famous picture 'When Did You Last See Your Farther' or perhaps 'The Laughing Cavalier' - or perhaps he's advertising 'Hamlet Cigars' ;)
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If it is the shape that is registered then it is quite possible for it to be used to commemorate the 250th anniversary - 1646 -1896 :)
The shape conforms to the Arts & Crafts taste IMHO, so it would have been produced for a while, and serves as a good canvas for the engraving.
Cheers, Nigel
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I notice your use of the word 'if', Nigel :) Am sure it goes without saying that not easy now to find a source of definitive confirmation as to what the Registrant's intention was, and the matter at least to me, despite various other comments to the contrary, lacks certainty as to whether it was the shape or engraving that was being Registered............ but then perhaps I'm suffering from muddled thinking.
Originally, I dismissed the possibility that it was the shape since as you can see there are at least three pieces, all of different shape - two jugs and a tumbler - and my experience with Board of Trade Registrations suggest it's an unlikely situation for one Reg. No. to represent such diversity of shape.
However, as you've no doubt seen from my earlier comments, the original factory drawing carries the instruction that the details of the engraving are 'to be removed' - in other words they were not intended to form part of the Registration - so on the face of it this may be a unique Registration insofar as it protects multiple shapes.
Your suggestion that the engraving implies a 250th anniversary I'm sure is accurate, and the shape of the tumbler is definitely reminiscent of Philip Webb's designs c. 1860s for Morris, Marshall Faulkner & Co. (made by Powell & Sons) - it's those bulges and the clear glass element. The other two shapes are stylistically unrelated to Arts & Crafts, and appear to be designs from periods earlier than second half C19.
Edited to add........... without thinking too much I had rather lumped P/Webb's designs for Morris/Powell etc., as A. & C. ...... this however, is probably an error on my part, and more correctly they are products of what is described as the 'Aesthetic Movement' - as style similar to A. & C. in it's simplicity but something that came as the last big fashion of the C19. The 1860s are too early for A. & C.
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Sorry, I don't know why, I was thinking the tumbler was 1855, and I didn't go back and check the OP. Yes, that makes more sense for them to be contemporary, if I'm thinking they had an interest in Charles I at that time. I think he's the one on the Britannia Ware S Hancock & Sons vase. I use it for hyacinths although I don't think it was made for that but I put a hyacinth bulb in anything and everything.
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A well used vase there! ;)
Thank you for your very interesting thoughts on the registration Paul :)
I think the glass designs at the merging of the Aesthetic Movement with the Arts & Crafts Movement can be very difficult to call, just as the merging of British Art Nouveau and A&C glass can be.
Whilst much is obviously of the style meant, sometimes the item could be either. I think this is a result of the British way of making things subtle (some might say something more derogatory!). I would suggest that this has often been the result of commercial needs to appeal to customers who have a very conservative attitude toward style. Certainly this is true of the time when cut glass changed - embodied by the exhibition held in 1934. Later I know, but a very good illustration of the point I'm trying to make, since the buyers were too scared to stock those modern designs at that time. I'm sure this could have been true in the late nineteenth century too.
I would say the Philip Webb designs for glass are the beginning of the British A&C glass era. Don't forget that the first glass he designed was for Red House, the house he designed for Morris, and that is A&C.
Mind you have made me think about P Webb's designs for glass Paul. For instance, is this glass with applied 'jewels' Aesthetic Movement or A&C??
http://collection.cmoa.org/CollectionDetail.aspx?item=1003838&retPrompt=Back+to+Results&retUrl=CollectionSearch.aspx%3fsrch%3dWebb%252c%2bPhilip (http://collection.cmoa.org/CollectionDetail.aspx?item=1003838&retPrompt=Back+to+Results&retUrl=CollectionSearch.aspx%3fsrch%3dWebb%252c%2bPhilip)
Or both??
Cheers, Nigel
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Julie - I can understand the confusion as to date of the op's Registration and your vase - in fact I think the date is shown only once, and that's as part of the caption to my pix from Kew, so don't think you're to blame for missing that. I like your vase, but then I'm a big fan of blue and white. Difficult to be specific perhaps as to whether the guy on your vase was intended to be Charles I - always possible the image is simply a stylized pic. of Dutch art/Cavaliers/C17 costume, and as for the theme of the engraving on the op's tumbler, my opinion is that as a subject matter it seems to have been used very rarely in the U.K. around that time ......... I'm not aware of other pieces showing reference to this subject.
It's a shame Nigel that the glass in your link is in Pittsburgh - and I believe there others very similar in the Museum Bellerive, Zurich - but that's glass for you............ always somewhere other than where you'd like it to be.
I think if we started to debate the difference between aesthetic and A. & C. we'd be here all night. ;) But ever one to rise to the occasion, here is my take on recognized art movements from second half C19:-
Somewhere around 1860, Morris seems to have been extolling the virtues of C17 Venetian fine glass but already senses that the stuff is too thin and impractical and suggested it should be made thicker and less dainty, but must be "done by hand, and not by machine" - so this is possibly what drives him to ask Webb to create those 1860 designs for the Red House that you mention, although they in turn appear to be equally thin. Webb made a large service of pieces for personal use at the Red House, the style of which was described as -" 'medieval' in spirit, and somewhat reminiscent of German drinking glasses of the C16" - so here we see glasses designed by Webb - not Morris - although coincidentally they reflect what was to become Morris' personal signature theme of designs of pre-industrial manufacture - "have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful etc. etc......"
Despite the fact that the date of 1860 is relevant here - relevant because various sources quote this date as the beginnings of the 'aesthetic movement' - neither these Venetian or medieval glasses owe anything to the 'aesthetic' movement - which (not my interpretation) is described as 'decoration with a strong Japanese influence' (think Whistler), and I see nothing remotely Japanese in any of the Venetian or medieval designs from Powell or Webb around that date. The aesthetic movement seems to have been fairly short-lived - fading away somewhere around 1880.
In fact I'd go as far as to say that my opinion is that the features that go to make up what is described as 'aesthetic' style, do not in the main lend themselves to glass ..........aside from pressed glass, styles from that period are either Venetian in appearance (see a lot of the early Powell designs), or a limited amount of medieval patterns as designed by Webb for Morris c. 1860. But like so many cliché words, 'aesthetic' has probably been over-done and mis-applied frequently, although it does look to have much bona fide use in other art forms - possibly ceramics mostly.
However, it does lead on to the next big artistic fashion, which was art nouveau - and this continued into the C20 with something of a break before art deco kicks in - both nouveau and deco were artistic shapes/styles that lent themselves far more to being expressed in glass than did the aesthetic or A. & C. movements - I don't include Venetian as a movement.
In the U.K. the introduction of the A. & C. style is attributed to Morris, with his misguided idea that people wanted a flavour of knights on horseback and maidens with tall pointy hats with a little silk flowing from the top, and then they'd be happy all day long toiling at their hand-crafted labours and go home in the evening and read 'News From Nowhere', poetry and dream of John Ball....... how wrong can you be!
Don't know that it's easy to put a date on the beginnings of A. & C., but it seems to have been very apparent in furniture around the early 1880s, but again glass items difficult to pinpoint. The criteria for the style of this fashion might be simplicity, functional design and robustness - so do the designs of Dresser qualify, and how about the 'leather bottle' flasks or 'Clutha' pieces? Gives you an idea of how some of these movements didn't lend themselves to glass when you look for example at the paucity of material shown in CH books, but as I say masses of examples in furniture, ceramics etc.
I don't think the Glasgow School was a movement that influenced glass fashion - painting, silverwork and furniture but not glass.
Nigel - hope this might help ;)
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Hmm, I wasn't really asking about the movements, rather the glass that was produced and the occasional difficulty in attributing British glass to a particular Movement/era.
Sometimes an item can be classed as either Aesthetic or A&C; similarly A&C or Art Nouveau. Often they are quite distinct, however there are things that could be either.
Green spiral trailing over clear glass A&C, or Art Nouveau? The same vase green on green is A&C.
The Powell glass by Philip Webb that I linked to A&C, or Aesthetic? Or both?
I don't see it being in a museum in America a problem, rather preaching English glass abroad ;) :)
Cheers, Nigel
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Nigel, I'll ask the Mods. to remove that post if you like ;)
Confining comments to your original questions regarding differences between the aesthetic and A. & C. then..........
In view of the apparent criteria for the aesthetic style, then I have a problem finding pieces that conform genuinely and qualify i.e. the Japanese influence, - although you may be correct and that many folk to see A. & C. within what others see as 'aesthetic' pieces - nothing in art is simple - I notice that Andy McConnell doesn't appear to index the word 'aesthetic' in his Decanter book.
In my opinion, the fly in the ointment with 'aesthetic' is art nouveau .. the qualifications for which as you'll know are the sinuous, curving lines and representation of natural forms, much of which can be seen in what people call 'aesthetic'. Nouveau was a very long lived style, that incorporated many variations on the main theme, and showed differences in many countries. I would go as far as saying that you will find all of the other movements we have mentioned within art nouveau - all the trailing you mention, Dresser's silver mounts, and some A. & C. detail.
There shouldn't really be a problem with A. & C. - or is there......... is Dresser's work with his linear and angular lines 'Modernism' or A. & C., or even the precursor of later art deco, or even his own personal take on art nouveau?
I think that Morris lost the plot somewhere along the way..... as we said he praised Venetian around 1860, with it's fine lines and daintiness, but seems later to have favoured the simplicity of the medieval chunkiness - although whether he himself ever described it as A. & C. I've no idea.
Sorry to say that I suffer from Nationalism........ am a big fan of keeping British culture in Britain, but I would send the 'marbles' back.
Promise I won't say any more - but please do give us your conclusion. :)
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I have been musing on this problem for sometime now, stimulated by two things.
Firstly, the common misnomers of attribution that I see on dealers stands, or by auctioneers, and or course, on eBay (and occasionally by collectors in discussion). Secondly, having visited the Aesthetic Exhibition held at the V&A Museum a few years back, I was astonished to see only one piece of British glass. It was a C. Dresser, Crow's Foot claret jug. (Mind that omission was true of the Art Deco exhibition too!).
This made me wonder, "Wasn't there anything else from Britain?" - especially since, at home, I had two highly Aesthetic pieces, an S&W decanter (missing stopper), and a silver plated stand holding a pair of deep bowls, all with high Japanese influence to the British taste. Was it not possible that a Museum in this country held similar items that could be worthy of show?
Then I went on to think about the pieces that I'd seen over the years with various attributions to style, or era.
I've been pondering since, and really was seeking the thoughts of other members. This might have stimulated a breakthrough with my little brain cells.
Yes, of course I have formulated some views, but occasionally I see something in a discussion, or a description, and it makes me question what I have concluded.
So, as you can see, it is a work in progress. A&C isn't a problem, generally, nor, Art Nouveau, or even true Aesthetic, it's when there appears to be a cross over that I can feel some confusion!!
Enough for now. Cheers, Nigel
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Paul, I think the vase design is based on this portrait of Charles I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_I_at_the_Hunt
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thanks Julie - yes, agree it does appear to be a very similar pose and could well have been taken from that famous painting, which most people would have known, and V.D. always been a favourite artist. Is the decoration on your bulb vase based on the same method as that used to decorate b. & w. plates i.e. transfer taken from inked copper plate, or was it hand painted?
V.D. obviously keeping on the right side of the King............ for someone of short stature, Charles seems to be towering over the horse ;)
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transfer ware (shame no one seems to come to the pottery board to discuss these things!)
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oh, pity............. well let's discuss it here then shall we............ ;D sorry folks - as a final comment on Julie's bulb vase............
Just been through the Coysh & Henrywood two volume 'Dictionary of Blue & White Printed Pottery 1780 - 1880' - but no sign of this S. Hancock bulb vase or that particular transfer print, and in fact unable to find anything remotely similar so must assume Dutch/Cavalier/Charles I very uncommon as we did suggest.
On the other hand Julie's vase may well have been a design produced after 1880 (as suggested), and hence not figured in the book (the title indicating nothing after 1880) - Sampson Hancock did in fact continue well into the C20.
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If I'm understanding the base mark correctly, the blue and white Charles I vase dates 1881-1920? going by it being marked Stoke on Trent rather than Tunstall (before) or Hanley (after)? http://www.thepotteries.org/allpotters/501.htm
the design seems to have been used on at least a few different vase shapes
https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-us/auction-catalogues/gerrards-auction-rooms/catalogue-id-srger10068/lot-e5a77402-d568-4e6a-947f-a50600ca0713
https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/wotton-auction-rooms/catalogue-id-srwot10083/lot-df9f1f10-172c-42d8-9ebb-a62601098a04
https://www.blueandwhite.com/products.asp?p=SHANK50243
https://www.blueandwhite.com/museum.asp?m=Hancock+Sampson&p=Unidentified+Pattern