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Glass Discussion & Research. NO IDENTIFICATION REQUESTS here please. => British & Irish Glass => Topic started by: malcmat on September 24, 2019, 09:39:53 AM

Title: Pressed glass clear bowl British - ID = Sowerby
Post by: malcmat on September 24, 2019, 09:39:53 AM
This bowl does have a lozenge mark inside on the base but hard to read its 4 inch dia x 3.5 inch tall
Any ideas please on maker/year
many thanks
malc
Title: Re: Pressed glass clear bowl British ?
Post by: Paul S. on September 24, 2019, 01:32:37 PM
you might try using Blu Tack to take a pressing, alternatively try talc or carbon paper to highlight the diamond.         In the meantime I'll look through some of TNA images.             Assume this is a pressed item, and have you looked through any of the Board's pressed groups i.e. Sowerby for example?
Title: Re: Pressed glass clear bowl British ?
Post by: malcmat on September 24, 2019, 02:18:32 PM
Hi Paul, yes have looked through various pressed glass pages on the net etc .I will try and take a pressing or trace of it
Thanks
Title: Re: Pressed glass clear bowl British ?
Post by: Paul S. on September 24, 2019, 03:09:13 PM
sure  -  there are two difficulties in the search  -  as we know, none of the factory drawings provide dimensions plus, so far I can't match the bands of horizontal lines showing on this piece, which is possibly a sugar.        Have to say I chickened out of looking through all 125 pages of the Board's pressed gallery for Sowerby patterns.
Small bowls such as this were commonplace shapes, but for reasons possibly lost in the mists of time it appears that they don't start to appear with these opposing projecting handles until Sowerby start their Registrations, and in the 1870s there are several Registrations from that factory for small bowls with such adornment - almost theirs exclusively - as a design feature it's just possible it had its origin in the then current fashion for the aesthetic art - think of the PIQW bowls with similar handles.
Hopefully someone here will recognize this particular design, alternatively you will need to provide at least one of the four pieces of data from the diamond, and taking a punt my opinion is that this will be from the second period of lozenges  -  1868 - 1883.

I've tried Cottle's booklet - Slack and Jenny Thompson, though it's not to say I couldn't have missed seeing this design.     Also tried the Thistlewood's CD rom discs, though don't think these cover all of the 1870s output  -  if I have that wrong do shout.

Hopefully one of the pressed buffs here will have the answer for you - best of luck.
Title: Re: Pressed glass clear bowl British ?
Post by: malcmat on September 24, 2019, 03:50:56 PM
Hi Paul, thank you for the information unfortunately the blu tac pressing does not show up to well
Malc
Title: Re: Pressed glass clear bowl British ?
Post by: malcmat on September 24, 2019, 05:01:51 PM
Just went through the 172 pages of the glass gallery site for registered designs but no luck. Had a couple of sowerby handles that were similar.
Title: Re: Pressed glass clear bowl British ?
Post by: Tigerchips on September 24, 2019, 10:58:20 PM
Looks like a letter 'D' for September on the bottom mark so maybe 1868-1883. Top mark looks like the number 8 so the 8th day if i'm right. Bundle on the left might be 5 or 6.
Just a guess though.
Title: Re: Pressed glass clear bowl British ?
Post by: neilh on September 25, 2019, 05:12:33 AM
Here's a similar shaped one from Molineaux Webb which can't be later than 1870 so other firms must have been knocking out this type of thing pre 1870. It appears on an odds and ends catalogue page and I've never been sure what it is, guessed at an ice bucket.
Title: Re: Pressed glass clear bowl British ?
Post by: Paul S. on September 25, 2019, 08:10:52 AM
Hi Neil  -  you know far more about these things than me, but I'd have thought an ice bucket would be of substantial size - and as far as I can tell and looking at the size given for the piece here, that most of these things were of a much smaller size.    The Sowerby examples that I can find images of in the Archive pix look to be much smaller and appear to be made as salts and open sugars.                Don't recall in my trawling of the Kew images of having seen an ice bucket in the lozenge years - though such emphatic comments often come back to haunt me.          Shame that the Webb piece you show wasn't Registered.

It's a fact that C19 U.K. Board of Trade Glass Registrations were (mostly) to protect a shape rather than decoration - and it's the decoration that is giving problems here  ………..   there are a couple of Sowerby pieces Registered in the decade in question that are of a similar shape, but lack matching decoration.          Size comparisons re the factory drawings are unknown - pity they didn't add this information to their drawings.

Will look later at the suggestions for given for some of the lozenge details, and see if anything turns up.
Title: Re: Pressed glass clear bowl British ?
Post by: MHT on September 25, 2019, 08:26:10 AM
This is the creamer to your small sugar bowl. 3.25inches tall, it also has a registration mark which is difficult to read and no obvious makers mark. I have always thought it was Sowerby due to the shape and colour, it is similar in style to pattern numbers 1568/9 in the 1882 pattern book. I was in an antique shop a couple of weeks ago which had the same jug in blue/white, the registration mark was difficult to read but it also had a faint Sowerby mark.
Title: Re: Pressed glass clear bowl British ?
Post by: Paul S. on September 25, 2019, 09:38:28 AM
Continuing that line of thought .................................… 
looking at page 112 in Cottle where he reproduces page 11 of Sowerby Pattern Book IX (1882)  -  the second item on the top line appears to be design 1569, and shows what looks like a two handled sugar basin, with three horizontal lines of banding - similar decoration to the piece here.         

Sowerby pattern Nos. 1568, 1569 and 1582 (I think) - appear to be a small 'suite' of open sugar basins  -  and what links all three is the decoration in the form of multiple rows of horizontal banding, plus they all appear to have opposing short handles as shown on the piece here.

Turning back to Cottle's main text, he appears to list this three piece 'suite' of sugar basins as Rd. Nos. 362734/35/36 Sowerby Rd. Nos. - is it possible that factory item 1569 which could match the piece here - is either Rd. 362735 or 362736?         All thee separate patterns were Registered on the same day.
Title: Re: Pressed glass clear bowl British ?
Post by: agincourt17 on September 25, 2019, 10:20:56 AM
I'm pretty sure that this [sugar] bowl is Sowerby pattern 5005, shown as such with a matching creamer in their pattern book XV of 1895.

It is from Sowerby's RD 355157 of 14 September 1880- Parcel 1. The design representation shows only the overall shape without any surface decorative details.

I haven't seen the bowl (or the creamer) in clear glass before, but I have seen the bowl in blue marbled glass, and bowl and creamer in purple marbled glass too.

Fred.
Title: Re: Pressed glass clear bowl British ?
Post by: agincourt17 on September 25, 2019, 10:25:48 AM
Photos of the sugar  and creamer in purple marbled glass.

Fred.
Title: Re: Pressed glass clear bowl British ?
Post by: Paul S. on September 25, 2019, 01:05:30 PM
glad an id found eventually.       A strong similarity of shape and decoration to those patterns mentioned earlier - perhaps they reused the mould.

The three horizontal bands of decoration can just be seen on the edges of the bowl in the drawing, which helps with the id.
Title: Re: Pressed glass clear bowl British ?
Post by: malcmat on September 25, 2019, 08:36:43 PM
Many thanks to everyone re the strong  ID that it’s Sowerby. I am still trying to get a decent tracing form the mark which is on the inside at the bottom of the bowl but it’s so faint.
Regards
Malc.