Glass Message Board
Glass Discussion & Research. NO IDENTIFICATION REQUESTS here please. => British & Irish Glass => Topic started by: neilh on September 21, 2022, 12:08:53 PM
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I picked up this machine etched comport recently, Height 6in, Width 7in
Density 2.89g/cc which is decent lead content and rules out the northeast of England for what I think is a late Victorian piece.
I suspect it is not from the northwest either as the glass is very thin.
The chief oddity about this one is that there is a pattern number 16 stamped on the top plate belly button.
As you can see it's in a little circle of its own. This is not proud to the surface, you can't feel either the number or the ring around it.
Not sure how that would have been added.
I'm guessing with these features it might be closer to 1900 than 1880.
Has anyone ever seen a machine etched set with a number, or an idea how it was applied?
Are any manufacturers known to number their pieces like this?
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Neil is it called needle-etching? Just wondered if that might help your searches.
I have no idea at all to be honest, but if it were mine I'd be searching French first - Baccarat or St Louis probably.
I'm not entirely sure when needle etching first took off as a practise, but it has a French look to me.
m
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It's probably the machine number rather than the pattern number and something often found on French glass. Machine 16 was probably used to create the plate.
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Many thanks - two votes for French then. It definitely has a different feel to other generic etched / engraved pieces from UK makers.
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St Louis apparently did needle etched, at least I think it is?? - this is their Manon. However it might be acid etched? I don't really know. It appears in a catalogue (where I'd not realised the designs were needle etched, I'd assumed they were engraved):
https://www.replacements.com/crystal-st-louis-manon-claret-wine/p/77942571
https://www.gslr-antiques.com/en/boutique/services/sl-manon-coupe.php
These are the design Sapho:
https://antikes-glas.de/en/cristallerie-saint-louis/champagne-flutes-made-colorless-glass-with-etched-decoration-louis-p-3904.html
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I vote English - possibly decorated by Northwood for Stevens and Williams. I have something very similar decorated by Northwood that I’ve been meaning to post, it’s a bit buried at the moment. The centre frosting will be mechanically ground I believe, even though the design is acid etched (after needle etching the design through the resist). I think the ‘16’ is just a random mark from manufacture.
Have you made an allowance for the large stem bubble in your density calculations?
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No I don't think the bubble would affect it much. The main use of density in this period is to identify northeast glass, which was resolutely lower. Things become difficult towards the end of the 19th century as imports from the continent and the US started to dominate, in pressed glass at least. I don't know the density profiles for overseas glass so I couldn't say if French is ruled out or not. I have early salts thought to be French which are both high and low density.
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Here is my comport that looks to be a smaller version of the same range. Mine is 6 inch diameter by 5 inches tall, so an inch less in both dimensions. It has six facets on the stem and a 24 point star on the base. There is no number in the centre.
My comport has been decorated by John Northwood’s workshop. The exact same pattern can be seen on page 14 of the sketch book held by the Corning museum "Sketches of etched glass. J. J. Northwood about 1881-1884".
https://www.cmog.org/library/sketches-etched-glass-1881-1884?search=library_collection%3A24172b728ffcedd7e9b3811ff6dec0d9&page=117
The design on your comport isn’t in the sketch book but it has the same double sine wave design around the edge, not that that will be exclusive to Northwood but is interesting.
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The outline of the design on my comport was first acid etched, it was then cleaned and masked by hand before frosting with white acid (first photo). The frosting of the central area (second photo) has been achieved by grinding/abrasion, even though the texture looks reasonably uniform you can clearly see the difference between the two frosting methods. (Pin shown for scale)