Glass Message Board
Glass Discussion & Research. NO IDENTIFICATION REQUESTS here please. => Poland => Topic started by: Glen on November 29, 2006, 08:06:23 PM
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I'd like to share with everyone who is interested in pressed glass, deco style or Carnival, a major catalogue discovery.
The country is Poland. The glass maker was Hortensja.
Go to my website
http://www.carnival-glass.net
and click the centre link
Glen
Moderator: Link updated http://www.geocities.com/carni_glass_uk_2000/HORTENSJA.html
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:shock: Wow, Glen, how exciting. I can't wait to read more!
Great article, really enlightening. Thank you :!: :)
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Fascinating Glen. The Palm Tree caught my eye particularly as it's often seen in green uranium. Now I need to confirm that it's exactly the same palm tree
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Glen
A wonderfull artical great piece of research,looking forward tothe next episode!!
I have a Dianna the Huntress in none carnival along with other patterns in a simmilar intaglio style also a piece known as Eureka Cross do you think these pieces are from Poland.
I will put an album of photos of these pieces on the GBM Gallary asap for you to see.
Tony H in NZ
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Della, many thanks :D
Christine, I'm most interested to know if the Vaseline Palm Tree is theirs. I have seen what I feel could well be Hortensja items in vaseline, but your comment will help to firm this up (or not).
Tony, thanks, and yes, yes I do think that it's highly likely they made Diana and all the other frosted/golden patterns like Eureka Cross. (Your Beverley Crystal, Poland sticker is a great additional piece of evidence, by the way). I will post more catalogue extracts as soon as I can do them. We may have to make some attributions through circumstantial evidence (and cautiously attribute, rather than firmly attribute), until we get proof positive with maybe another catalogue or two. I look forward to seeing your photos.
Glen
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Glen, this helps me to remind the STS catalogue of Zagreb!
Fascinating in every respect!
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Glen
I have placed photos in my gallery album name Glass Poland enjoy
Tony H in NZ
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Found a set on ebay, mind you it's an Australian set :shock: :lol: :lol:
see here (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Set-of-6-Uranium-Glass-Sundae-Dishes_W0QQitemZ290056332738QQihZ019QQcategoryZ19QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)
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Pamela - many thanks for your comment. :D
Tony - the surrounding pattern on your pieces (Drinking and Warrior) matches exactly one in the Hortensja catalogue. Deep Vs with a triple leaf motif in the Vs. There are just two designs for the base shown in the catalogue - one is of a swan, the other is of two little people dressed exactly like your "Drinking" person.
I feel almost certain that yours are Hortensja - based on that matching surrounding design. There must have been many central patterns, but as we only have one catalogue, I expect we are missing many other designs.
I'll aim to add catalogue scans as soon as possible.
Super pieces, by the way.
Glen
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Christine - yes, that's it! Great. Thank you. :D
Glen
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Hi Glen,
I managed to miss this while the site was down! Congratulations, fantastic find.
As Christine suggests, the Palm Tree pattern definitely appears here in Australia in the Crown catalogues. I've seen them in the standard uranium lettuce green, amber and clear. There are four or five pieces in my collection, but only three are easy to get to. Would you like pictures? I think they're slightly different patterns, but would love your opinion.
Cathy
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Cathy - the Golden Carp also appears in Crown Crystal catalogues. And yes please, I would love photos.
BTW, I "heard" of someone who has a Melon Rib vase with a coronet label. Have you got / seen the photo? I have tried to get hold of one, but nothing is forthcoming.
Thanks
Glen
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Cathy - the Golden Carp also appears in Crown Crystal catalogues.
Yes, but it's a much less obvious resemblance: I'm pretty sure there are no waves in the Crown version and the fish is smaller... (and having said that with such confidence I must check to make sure- I haven't seen one go past on eBay for a while and haven't got one myself).
Gosh, they were so naughty!! With their rampant copying, and with the head WJ 'Gunboat' Smith bullying the government to raise tariffs when it looked like overseas glass might be cheaper, no wonder they had a stranglehold over the market here.
I heard about that Coronet sticker as well, but haven't seen one. Eo you know anything about Coronet? Mostly when the melon ribs appear with stickers here, they have either a Waverley sticker (which Crown stuck on many of their jug and tumbler sets) or Suprima.
Cheers,
Cathy
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Coronet was used on some Czech glass (but who?) - and it also is part of the Hortensja logo. The thot plickens.
Glen
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To digress slightly from carnival, are we saying that the green uranium palm trees found here in the UK are Hortensja or Crown Crystal or either
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I suppose the jury is still out - but I suspect Hortensja. What do you think, Cathy?
Glen
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I have just realised what Cathy meant when she agreed with me :shock: I only meant the palm tree was pictured upside down :oops: and that it had taken me a few seconds to work out that it was the same. Must have been one of those psychic moments
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Christine - I knew what you meant :lol: :lol:
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Great article Glen 8) A really fascinating read as always :)
I think my favourite piece is the Rising Comet vase.
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Wonderful discovery, Glen.
Bernard C. 8)
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It is very interesting, I had not realised Poland was such an important glass design centre.
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Hi Glen,
On inspecting my pieces, I'm pretty sure mine were genuinely made in Australia. My immediate gut feel was that the cactus plant under the palm was quite different. On comparison the proportions of the pattern differ in very many ways.
Here's my 8.5" salad.
http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i120/retro_spection/palmtrees1.jpg
And the detail:
http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i120/retro_spection/palmtreesdetail.jpg
Compare these with your bowl. There are differences in relative lengths and angles of the zig-zag element, the detail on the cactus at the base of the tree, the positioning of the stars and the texture of the bark on the tree.
The profile seems to be different - the sides are straighter (which appears to me to be a characteristic simplification that Crown Crystal used when copying patterns).
http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i120/retro_spection/palmtrees2.jpg
I thought perhaps the bowl that you showed may have been a different size, hence the different proportions. But, the same differences show up on the other pieces I have.
The nappy:
http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i120/retro_spection/palmtreesnappy.jpg
cf with the nappies Christine found. The positioning of the stars is the most obvious difference in these, but look at the amount the zig zag line comes out from the base of the tree to the right. The colour also seems to be different--Mine's a bog-standard uranium lettuce green.
In the flesh, the vase also shows similar proportions to the other pieces found in Australia, but it's harder to make out the pattern:
http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i120/retro_spection/palmvase.jpg
The only one that I'm not entirely sure about is this sandwich plate, which shows a clarity of metal which would be extremely unusual for a Crown piece.
http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i120/retro_spection/palmtreessandwich.jpg
But then, these were made in the late 20s before the depression really bit and the standards slid appallingly, so perhaps? Not sure about this one though.
On the weight of that evidence, coupled with the fact that there was a full suite of pieces and a series number ( '78' ), and that I've evidence from various documents that Crown were not above copying pieces, I believe that these items are indeed Australian.
Seriously, they had absolutely no shame. If they were producing them these days, we'd be shooting them down as fakes :) :) :)
Do you have a rough date for your catalogue, Glen?
Cathy
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I have just realised what Cathy meant when she agreed with me :shock: I only meant the palm tree was pictured upside down :oops: and that it had taken me a few seconds to work out that it was the same. Must have been one of those psychic moments
:lol: :lol: :lol: Oh, that's what you meant! Doh!! And there I was, wondering how on earth you knew about the Australian connection!! :) :)
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I suppose the jury is still out - but I suspect Hortensja. What do you think, Cathy?
Glen
Definitely. The ones that Christine has linked are not Australian - so I agree.
Cathy
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Hi Cathy - the date of the Hortensja catalogue is 1936. I imagine that sourcing others is not going to be easy, but at least we now have a start.
Many thanks for the photos and details of your Palm Tree pieces - it really is a most interesting situation. One thing that is emerging very strongly is that Australia and Poland had a firm trade link - and I feel sure that Beverley Crystal is tied up in it.
I can also see a whole range of vases in the Hortensja catalogue that are like the Melon Rib vases. There are links here that we are only just touching the surface of.
Glen
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Another difference betweeen the Polish palms and the Aussie palms is the shade of green. The ones I've seen are the yellowish post sell by date lettuce green - the one that's usually easy to determine as uranium without a light
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I have thoroughly enjoyed this thread. I love trying to learn about glass,Especially when Crown Crystal has an involvement. :D and love to see mysteries unravel. So now we know of another company that CC copied.
Julie
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What a tangle. The Aussie ones allegedly date to 1929 which is that earlier, pre-deco period (of Crown Crystal production), and before Glen's catalogue.
Okay, assuming the Australian found ones are Aussie-made (and we can't necessarily do that) that may mean that Hortensja were exporting to Australia in the mid- to late- 1920s. Or, there's also the possibility of transfer of personnel one way or the other.
??????
Cathy
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Anne, Bernard, Lynne and Julie - sincere thanks for your kind comments. I really do appreciate and value the feedback. Thank you.
Cathy - you are right that it is a tangle - and I don't think we'll be able to smooth out the knots for quite some time. In fact it's just one of the tangles! The connections and overlaps that I have found with Josef Inwald (amongst others) are also very challenging.
I certainly do find the Australian-Polish link fascinating. I am sure there is a lot more to emerge from this (and I know I have a lot more work to do!)
Glen
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I've been asked by a neighbour to identify some of the glassware she wants to dispose of so have been searching the board for identities. One fruit set seems to be similar to the Hortensja Palm item in Glen's fascinating article above. The fruit set is a yellowy-green and glows intensely under a UV light. Pics below... but looking at Cathy's pics they seem closer to the ones my neighbour has than the Hortensja ones... does this colour help pin down the maker at all?
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I would say the yellowish green was from Poland, the Aussie ones are much more green
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Hi Anne, Christine's right, the colour in my pieces are different. The pattern is very, very close, but there are extremely subtle differences. I was able to get your picture to almost the same size as my bowl, and held the bowl over the pattern to see the differences. Probably the easiest to see is the two large leaves on the side - in the Australian version they are floating in the air without touching anything, whereas in your neighbour's bowl those leaves touch each other and the tree. There are other differences as well, but they're more subtle. Other differences I noted earlier, such as the stars being in different places, are not so pronounced.
Glen, about Inwald - I've found a reference to it being sold as Stephanie Crystal in Australia in a Tariff Board Hearing file. Frank has some pages of 'Stephanie Crystal' in a jeweller's catalogue from 1937. Wonder whether the same people imported 'Beverly'?
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Hi Christine and Cathy, thanks for your thoughts. I'm intrigued by these as looking at all three there are definite differences, so taking liberties with Glen's and Cathy's images I've done a comparative view to show them side by side to make it easier to see who did what. Perhaps this points to three makers rather than two?
Edited to add: I have just counted the ribs on them, and Glen's has 14 and Cathy's and my neighbour's has 12. Hmmmm....
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Glen, about Inwald - I've found a reference to it being sold as Stephanie Crystal in Australia in a Tariff Board Hearing file. Frank has some pages of 'Stephanie Crystal' in a jeweller's catalogue from 1937. Wonder whether the same people imported 'Beverly'?
Fascinating Cathy! Thank you for that information.
Glen
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Not sure if the palm trees should be a split topic from Glen's Hortensja post but, I've found a palm trees pattern in a Czech Stolzle 1930's Catalogue.
Ashtray Page 4 Pattern 18366
Two Handled Bowl/Sugar Page 5 Pattern 18395
Trinket Tray Page 13 Pattern 18351
Bowls/Dishes/Plates Page 19 Pattern 18332a 18334a
https://www-bohemianglass-org.translate.goog/katalog/c-stolzleho-synove-kat-187-lisovane-sklo-4935/detail/?_x_tr_sl=cs&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp