Topic: Two wine glasses query (posted for Martyn1)

[Anne]

Martyn was having problems posting earlier today, so he has asked me to post this query on his behalf. Can anyone help with an ID or more info about these wine glasses please?

Good morning
I have these two glasses which I think are Victorian and I am wandering if they can be dated to a particular period?
The first one has a snapped pontil and some polishing around the pontil.  It has a good swirly pattern in the bowl.
The second one looks a little earlier to me but the foot looks out of proportion so may have been ground to remove damage.
Any ideas as to probable dates.?
Many thanks
Martyn

[Paul S.]

Hi Martyn  -  in the absence of comments on height - these might be for wine, but equally they might be sherry if a little smaller  -  do they look similar in height to a standard sherry glass?              Drinking sherry in the later C19 was popular judging by the quantity of glasses made then.
Victorian drinking glasses are mostly impossible to date with accuracy  - my opinion would be that these are from somewhere in the second half of the C19, but beyond that it really is only guesswork  -  serious collectors tend to lose interest after 1830 (the end of George IV), and this is reflected in the absence of books devoted to Victorian drinking glasses.           Pontil scars often remain unpolished, and feet can vary a lot in diameter, so neither are reliable factors to help with dating, and the Victorians copied a great deal which confuses.

Both glasses have what appears to be slice cutting/cut hollows - a common form of decoration which occurs on pieces showing in S. & F. (c. 1880) and both will of course be hand made in three parts and the swirl effect seen on the bowls is a good sign of a hand made glass.

The first glass has a round funnel bowl  -  the other is a bell bowl, and is the more interesting and suggests possibly a slightly earlier date than the funnel bowl.              What might lift these out of the ordinary would be if they were good lead glass construction  -  if they're flicked they would ring, as am sure you know.        Anyway, they're good finds and antiques that you can actually use.

Sorry this is unhelpful - it really is a nebulous area though a good collecting period and avoids the expense of glasses from eighty years earlier

[Ekimp]

Hi, I wouldn’t disagree with anything Paul says except I would call the second glass a flared bucket bowl as it’s square on the bottom of the bowl, I thought bell bowls were rounded on the bottom in elegant lines that flow from the flared rim. I wouldn’t like to guess an age although the stem of the second glass reminded me of the simple later Victorian glasses you see lots of with the ‘T’ or ‘J’ marks under the foot. I suppose that type of stem was used for a long period though.

I like to look for wear too, on the foot and on the top rim (if it’s been stored upside down). Not that wear can be used to date but it’s nice to have well used glasses with plenty of history! Also, in my experience it should be obvious if the foot has been ground to remove chips, the finish of the ground rim looks quite different when examined closely, using a loupe helps.

[Martyn1]

Thank you Paul and Ekimp. I think that these are sherry.  Scottish Antiques have a few similar glasses.  They have a wine glass similar to the flared bucket bowl, but much larger, that they date 1840 - 1860 and a similar glass to my other that they date 1880. I'm thinking that c1880 would be a viable date for my two.  Although precise dating cannot be done, would you suggest that these two were earlier or later than 1880?

[Paul S.]

thanks for the correction re the shape of the bowl for the second glass, and I agree 'flared bucket' it is.

It really is impossible to be precise, but if pushed I'd stay with c. 1880 or a tad earlier for the first glass, but the flared bucket could be back around 1860 - but again it's an opinion only.
Staying with the second glass, in this instance it's probably unwise to put too much emphasis on using the bowl shape for dating - as a feature, heavily flared bowls are seen as early as c. 1730, though maybe they weren't that popular around the middle third of he Victorian period  -  this glass is obviously not C18.
Did you give these a flick?

[Martyn1]

Thank you Paul

I did give them a flick but they give little sound although the flared bucket bowl is very small with a thick base