Topic: Davidson Chippendale Pitcher and Glasses with Enamelled Flowers

[petet63]

Hi, does anybody have an idea of age, looks more 40's - 50's than 30's, or a pattern name, if this has one, for the set I have of Pitcher/Jug and six tumblers. The opaque part has enamelled flowers on and rings of colour. Jug is 20cm and tumblers are 10cm high. I see lots of Chippendale in the NE, wonder why  , but my searches don't show this at all.

[Bernard C]

Pete — like you, I've never seen this before.   What a marvellous discovery.

Some details:

Naturalistic bouquet:-
I am certain that the worn naturalistic bouquet is a standard Johnson Matthey transfer, and sold by JM eiither off the shelf or as an exclusive deal.   All the Davidson, Sowerby and Bagley examples I have seen I have never seen elsewhere, so must have been the subject of world-wide exclusive deals between Johnson Matthey and the respective glassworks.   The earliest date I've worked out for such JM / Davidson  transfers is early 1950s.

Alternate panels frosted:-
Not common at all on Davidson pieces.   I can recall seeing it, just the once, on a 278 vase, the flared vase on a square foot.   If it is sharp, ie you can use it as a nail file, it was sandblasted;  if smooth, acid-matted.

Banding:-
The decoration on your tumbler is called banding.   While I am sure the decoration on both your pieces was done by hand, machine-assisted banding was the norm for large-scale production.   There is a good piece on banding in Pyrex, 60 Years of Design, Tyne & Wear County Council, 1983.   This work dates Pyrex banding quite positively to the late 1930s, not post-war, but banding on other glass is popularly held to be an early post-war style, so it may not help with dating.

Note that I haven't checked the transfers with my reference photographs (which I can't find at present), so I can't be completely certain if the transfer was a Davidson exclusive.   This is not as daft as it might appear, as evidence I've accumulated over the years shows that all British glassworks helped each other out occasionally, so a short decoration run could have been done by one of the other three, Sowerby, Jobling or Bagley.   Hopefully someone can clear this up (or I might find my photographs).

Bernard C. 

[petet63]

Looking at the panels it looks like a 1st coat whitewash with brush marks in  Acid ? The flowers are hand painted, brush marks and each one has slight differences. Some flowers are smaller than others etc. The banding does have brush marks and the different spacing between them says hand painted. A quick look for JM shows a lot of pieces I have seen before and a lot on 1950's pieces. Would I be close with 40's - 50's. Thanks for the help Bernard. A few close ups below....

[Lustrousstone]

It looks entirely likely that the white is painted on IMO. Look for tiny scratches that won't be found in acid-etched or sand-blasted frosting.  The flowers are certainly hand painted, as they are different (brush marks aren't a guide as transfers were often based on hand painted originals). Acid frosting was often painted on but that can be seen by tiny missing bits, i.e., glossy bits.

The painting and transfer decoration was most likely a relatively cheap way of updating for better post-war sales without new designs and, consequently, expensive moulds. Many British manufacturers tried it.

[petet63]

I agree with the white being painted on, possibly an acid as it does have a roughness to it. It did cross my mind this might have been 'home made'. I gave it a good scrub but it didn't get the black 'muck' marks off the frosted parts until I soaked in water with a drop of bleach. Inside the jug, on the clear, is a small patch of frosting, a spill ?
 

[Lustrousstone]

Acid etching gives a smooth satiny finish (I should have said brushed on). White enamel paint would give a slight texture and a spill would be possible, as the enamel is usually fired on for permanence (relatively speaking)