Glass Message Board
Glass Discussion & Research. NO IDENTIFICATION REQUESTS here please. => France => Topic started by: Wynkin on June 13, 2019, 12:08:57 PM
-
I have now found three distinct bowl shapes of these wine glasses.
They all have the letter T inscribed on the foot.
I have spoken to various French glass dealers and they say they are C1850, but none of them know the maker.
I attach photos of five I just acquired, along with another four of this shape bowl I already had.
The five have slightly bigger balls on the stem.
I will show the three types of bowl I have found if anyone is interested.
I would be very grateful for any information.
-
Hello and welcome to the board :)
Sorry for the delay in replying but I can't see your photographs very well. I probably can't help with an identification, but better photographs might help someone else.
Could you post a picture of just one, against a white background so the actual pattern and shape can be seen clearly please?
many thanks
m
-
Sure, I will photograph just two as this site only allows tiny photos.
-
Hi and welcome to the board. Your photos can be up to 125kb in size, for which you should be able to make them around 700 pixels along the longest side, and then compress them. See out help topic to find out how to do this if you're not sure: https://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,34093.0.html - or ask for help and one of us will assist.
-
Thank you, I carefully adjusted the sizes but kept getting the same error message stopping my upload, which said 125kb limit, even though my collective photos were smaller in size.
I'll try again later.
Cordially, Wynkin.
-
This pic probably shows the 'honeycomb' pattern best and shows that while upright the glasses look fairly similar, they are very different.
One has a ball in the bowl.
It's not easy to see but they all have a carelessly marked T on the base.
-
Straight on. The one on the right has a ball in the bowl.
It's a maker I would like to find?
As I said earlier I have found three distinct bowl types. the one you see, a more cognac shaped and a flatter bottomed.
They are all ouraline (Vaseline glass) all obviously hand made. all have the same 'honeycomb' pattern and a roughly scored T on the bottom. Though it sometimes is so badly or quickly done that it looks like a Y or an L.
-
It is perfectly possible that the t-shaped mark you are seeing is just the way the glass was sheared off from the rod.
Is ouraline french for uranium? "Vaseline glass" is a purely american term. And I still haven't worked out if it has to contain opalescent glass as well as uranium. It's the opalescent glass in "vaseline glass" that gives the opaque vaseline-like appearance. The uranium gives rise to either yellow or green, but is clear.
-
Thank you for your kind reply.
The T shape looks as it was scratched on with a sharp point.
Ouraline is not the French word for uranium, confusingly there is a French leather wax called ouraline but it was only made from 1872 and glass made with uranium oxide, pitchblende or uraninite was made much earlier.
Ouraline is used in France to describe both yellow and green, clear uranium glass.
In France non-see through glass is called opaline and some is uranium glass.
(Photo attached of an 1865 Baccarat opaline uranium glass vase I found, it is pale green in natural light, it must have a lot of uranium oxide as it glows in a small amount of natural light).
It gets confusing as the English have adopted the term Vaseline glass to describe opalescent glass.
Uranium oxide gives yellow and green glass, but many other colours can also be found which are adulterated uranium glass.
Phew - I need a beer now!
-
Vaseline is a purely american term. (and a confusing one, we tend to avoid using it. ;D )
I have seen Uranium glass that is blue, turquoise, pink, and from bright canary yellow to a dull dark amber. It did get added to batches of other colours in small quantities, to give it a bit of a zing, before UV torches were invented.
There is often a t-shaped, slightly rough, scar left after a rod is removed. It happens when shears are used to cut the glass when still hot, rather than breaking off the pontil rod when the glass has cooled and leaving a broken scar.
Can you, (when you have finished your well-deserved beer) try to take a photo of the t-shaped mark?
If it is scratched into the glass, some talcum powder or cinnamon powder (for a dark contrast) rubbed over it will stick a little in the marks and bring it up for photography.
If the t-shape stands proud of the surface, as it would if it had been cut off with shears, the talc or cinnamon won't stick in any grooves. :)
I had wondered too, if Ouraline was a maker's name. :-[ I really did not know what it meant. ;D
-
I'll take your advice and try and enhance the T, tomorrow.
-
Here is the foot of the glass, I used black oil paint.
Hope you can see the T.
The first photo is the three sorts of glasses I have found with different bowl shape and stem decoration.
The glass in the center has a ring rather than a bulb on the stem.
-
:) That is a shear mark, from cutting hot glass, not a T.
Many people before you have seen this sort of mark and thought it was a T or a Y, or sometimes an L.
I'm afraid I was suspicious as soon as you described it, because of how common a mistake this can be.
I do hope you can get the black paint off!
-
I do hope you can get the black paint off!
In the old days I would have used T-Cut. ;D ;D ... and I see it's still available!
-
::) Oooooh Kevin, you are awful! ;D
-
Thanks for your help and knowledge, I have some hand made glasses but they are not made the same way.
Now I just need to find the maker, they are not common but there are a few about, crazy prices though 60 -160 euros.
The glass is relaxing in bath of white spirit.
-
Different makers will use different finishing techniques.
I think finding the maker might be difficult. But we don't give up here!
I think "we" (it was another very dedicated member) have just solved another mystery, after 30 years.
-
I appreciate your knowledge and willingness to share, I will endeavour to do the same.
-
ooh they are interesting.
They look old. If you are seeing them around then it's possible they are French?
I have a book with some French glasses in. I'll have a look and see if there is anything in there.
I presume they were created in three sections, bowl,stem and foot. Perhaps the ball in the ball was an error in the making of the piece? I dont know if that is possible but it might be. They don't look perfectly symmetrical in the making. By that I mean that looking at stemmed bowls and glass in the book which date to c.1840 ish, they are pretty symmetrical and refined. Your glasses look a bit more rustic by comparison. So for example what I mean is, this is the book:
https://verrehistoire.typepad.com/files/leon_darnis.pdf
many of the pieces pictured on that link were created early 1800s, you can see how symmetrical they are by comparison.
m
-
hi, there is a fairly large explanation in the book about uranium glass. Unfortunately my French is not good enough to read and translate. It does appear to say that uranium glass came about in France by Bontemps for Choisy:
'En France, le ouraline fut redecouverte en 1838 par Bontemps dans sa cristallerie de Choisy-Le-Roi' pp12 BAGUIERS et VERRE A BOITE, L. Darnis
There are a number of transparent (not opaline) uranium glass pieces in the book, both footed bowl and also goblets. They date to 1838 - c. 1840s as far as I can see, but they are all very 'refined' and very symmetrical. None are like your glasses. None are a honeycomb molded bowl.
Sorry not to be more helpful.
-
Isn’t the ‘T’ just the gadget mark? There is a description of one type of gadget tool here:
https://www.glassmessages.com/index.php?topic=28538.0
Most places seem to date the use of the Gadget from 1860s to 1890s. Sometimes you can see where the other side of the clamp was on the top of the foot or on the lump at the bottom of the stem.
-
Flying Free
Thanks for your comments.
I am fairly sure they are French.
Translation of this line.
'En France, le ouraline fut redecouverte en 1838 par Bontemps dans sa cristallerie de Choisy-Le-Roi' pp12 BAGUIERS et VERRE A BOITE, L. Darnis
'In France, ouraline was rediscovered in 1838 by Bontemps in its Choisy-Le-Roi crystal factory' printed page 12 BAGUIERS and VERRE A BOITE, L. Darnis
I am English speaking and only speak conversational French, the title of the book can mean different things, I think it means dishes and glass box, I need to get it checked by a bilingual Friend.
She has got back and says it means 'baguier = a small box to keep rings in, verre à boîte - a glass box, or a box with glass lid'.
The link to the pdf of a book on glass was useful as it lead me to this website with links to glass resources, so I now have a lot of reading to do.
http://www.verre-histoire.org/contacts/
The honeycomb glasses I have found are all very hand made and no two are exactly the same, they also vary in height.
The search for information continues...
-
Ekimp
Thanks that very clearly shows a perfect T, the ones on these glasses are far more haphazard and uneven in depth.
But it appears they are formed the same way.
I have plenty to learn!
-
Hi, the book is full of footed bowls and beaker and goblets :)
That was the title of the book - I just added it as a source reference.
There is some amazing information out there if you know how to search for it, yes this site is good. I am pretty sure there are research conferences and papers presented somewhere on there.
http://www.verre-histoire.org/contacts/
and here
https://aihv.org/