Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: johngowen on November 06, 2018, 09:07:36 PM
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Dear Members, I recently purchased this fabulous and unusually coloured cylindrical bottle with a flat ground top and bottom at the National Glass Fair in Birmingham. 29cm tall and signed by Michael Harris.
In Paul Hill’s bookunder bottle section, p45 ”Other bottle forms include a mould blown cylindrical example, with a horizontal base and top, and with a cylindrical neck, and a tapered cylinder with a button opening and no neck, that resembles an artillery shell in form. Both are rare”
Am I a lucky boy and would my example be the artillery shell form? Or am I getting ahead of myself :)
Paul mentions “they are usually found in translucentmottled green, or green ribbons and mottled ochre colour ways”
My example is brown and a light yellow. Has anyone seen other examples of these?
I would be delighted if any of my learned colleagues could provide further light on this beautiful piece and look forward to being enlightened by more experienced collectors of Mdina pieces.
John
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It looks like an attenuated bottle, (as illustrated in Mark's book in your photo) minus the top neck and flange.
Is the rim heat finished? It is a bit hard to tell from your photo, which is sideways on and has a lot going on in the background.
It thr rim is heat finished (rounded and smooth) it's fine. Probably supposed to be an attenuated bottle, but something went wrong and it got finshed off differently rather than binning it. If it's been cut and polished or ground, you've got a bottle that has been cut down, probably after some damage to the top.
While you think it looks brown, it's actually amethyst over a yellow frothy background.
It is a much more unusual colourway than teal over yellow.
It's not the artillery-thing shape. That is much more thick and solid; and smaller, more like a big perfume bottle.
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Hi Sue
I think you could be right...I'm at work but will take a picture of the top when back home and send it over. I think it has been polished on the top surface. :( :(
I will report back.
Thank you for coming back to me, it is appreciated.
John
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:) Sorry about the potential bad news, but it is still a Michael Harris piece, in an unusual colourway.
Better with the damage sorted than binning it completely.
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Hi Sue,
Please find attached three pictures of the top of the Mdina piece.
As you can see from the pictures, the top is not flat but curves in towards the centre. if it had been cut off and ground, i don't believe that would be the case and when you run your finger (and tongue...sorry but much more sensitive) you can feel no edge.
If it had been cut, the polisher would then have had to round off the top to make it appear the way it does...is that likely or could this piece have been originally designed that way by Michael Harris?
Michael could have signed it either way, whether as a attenuated bottle or as an original piece so the signature doesn't help, only the fact that we know he created it but as what??? :) :)
I would value your thoughts once again once you have seen the latest pictures.
Once again, thank you for your support and help so far, it is appreciated.
john
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A couple more items here in the same amethyst and yellow ochre colours: https://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,36662.0.html
Yours is almost certainly a bottle which has lost it's top, if the body has been flattened slightly to be vaguely triangular rather than round then it started life as a Tricorn bottle.
The dealers who stand at the National Glass Fair are required to abide by certain standards by the organisers. One of which is not to offer for sale any heavily restored items, as far as I am concerned this would fall into that category. The dealer should have known that this is a bottle missing the top and as far as I am concerned unless they are delusional they would have. If the dealer had informed you that it had been restored and you were happy to purchase at an appropriately reduced price then all well and good.
A few years ago I found myself in exactly this situation after buying a Lollipop vase at the National, details here: https://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,50802.0.html
John
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That's very useful and well illustrated, John.
The new pics of the rim leave me doubting a bit - it does look rounded, and johngowan says he tried using his tongue to test for edges. ???
(Which is not remotely disgusting. It's eminently sensible, and I know of others who lick glass to test it. You test for real pearls by rubbing them on your teeth.)
But there is that peculiar flat-looking ring in it. That doesn't look right. I'd really like to be able to get my teeth onto it too, and check it myself.
As it is a very unusual thing, and has the pawmark, I imagine somebody may well have paid for a very good repair job.
I've found myself in the opposite situation. I bought a lollipop at a National which was far too cheap. The seller said she thought the top was broken. It wasn't. It was raggedy but very tall and all properly heat finished.
I've found a pic of the bottle i think is the artillery shape. I don't have it any more and I don't have pics of the rim, which is rounded and heat finished. It didn't look peculiar or odd, I don't think. ??? ;D
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I see a distinct bevel on the inside of the rim, looks like good work.
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On the new pics of the big, signed bit?
I can see a bevel, if I look for it. I'm not sure it's really there though. It might be an internal reflection in the casing?
(My eyes have been doing strange things recently. Yesterday I had a large blind spot in one of them, with rotating kalidescopic images all around it. It was quite interesting, but a bit awkward when I was trying to find anything.)
I'm still terribly unsure whether it's original or not.
If it's heat finished, it is.
If it's been polished, it's quite a wonderful job, but is highly likely not to be original.
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Hi John and Sue,
Thank you kindly for both your professional opinions, it is appreciated. I would love either of you to see it in the flesh as if it was a cut down bottle, someone has done a seriously good job.
The piece itself is a great colour and still an attractive piece, just wish we could all say it was an original but definitely need it authenticated further
Either way I am happy to keep it.
Thank you once again.
John
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Hi Sue
As an aside, the artillery top looks very similar to the finish on my piece.
You say it had been heat treated...could you explain to me what that is as not sure I Know...thanks in anticipation.
John
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I do think we'd have to see it in reality to decide.
It's authenticity is not in question. And if is sounding as if it probably is right.
I've got a Fish with no neck. It has a wide, heat-finished and rather wonky rim.
"Accidents" did get sold. ;D
A heat treated rim would be finished off in front of the glory hole. The metal gets heated until liquid enough to smooth out.
I've got an early IoWSG Azurene cylinder which has evidence of the glory hole heat treatment. The top 3 inches of silver foil turned blue. :o
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Hi John,
I don't know if this is will help shed any light on things - or confuse things even further - but I have a Mdina strapped glass bottle vase that I have always suspected may have been cut down, however mine looked as though it had been done with a hacksaw! I have since seen two other examples of the same bottle that appear to have been cut down just like mine, as well as examples of complete ones like the one in your photo. I suspect that this may have happened in the factory and they were sold on as seconds, unless there are some seriously clumsy people out there who all have a hacksaw to hand. Like you say, someone has done a seriously good job if it has been restored when glass restorers seem to be as rare as hens teeth!
At the end of the day you have a lovely vase with the addition of the master's signature and that is a find in itself. ;D
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If an item was damaged or in some way not up to scratch I do not believe it would have been signed in that fashion. Harris was not in the habit of routinely signing his name to his work. John's bottle looks like a finely executed example (in a very scarce colour), I imagine MH signed it because it was up to scratch and he was proud of his work.
The bottle in the following link makes for an interesting comparison, it was damaged during production and kept by the Harris family for many years. The top was left rough ground and it remained unsigned, leaving that top rough implies to me that they were trying to hide nothing:
https://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,57727.msg327377.html#msg327377
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I've seen a fair few big Earthtones bottles with no flanges and roughly ground tops.
The bottles have a big square base, with an attenuated neck.
But that is the only thing I see regularly with a roughly ground top.
I suppose it is perfectly possible this was done at the factory, and as John says, left rough to there can be no doubt about it being a second. (or because they didn't have polishing time or enough facilties...)
I don't have these any more, sorry, I can't provide an image of the ground top.
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It is said that many Mdina items were never signed because they were too busy, so I suppose it makes sense that they wouldn't want to spend too much time polishing seconds. Perhaps the long neck vases were particularly difficult to make and that's why quite a few appear to have been cut down.
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In the early days, the base finish itself was rather inconsistent, depending on the time and available workers and proper equipment to do it.
The sheer number of these "equally roughly-ground" tops does appear to suggest it was something carried out at the factory, as you suggested too, Penelope. :)