Topic: Unusual Etch on Champagne Dishes Unknown Maker Poss European

[pyrology]

I've had these lovely stems for quite a while now. I am totaly befuddled by them.
High quality crystal, with faceted stems and this very unusual needle etch with gold guilding. They have a mild panel optic and a very plain foot.
I have a feeling they may be Baccarat or Moser, but I have found no markings on them.

Does anyone have any ideas as to who may have made them?

Thank you for sharing your expertise with me,
Karen

[Bernard C]

Karen — Are you certain that the laurel swags and the bunches of grapes / grape flowers are both etched?   The swags look to me as though they could have been engraved.

Can't help you with an attribution, as mainland European glass is not my scene.

Bernard C. 
the heavier dealer

[paradisetrader]

I think they are Plate Etched or by the (UK) "transfer print resist method" (Hajdamach) rather than needle etched or engraved.

See the following posts / topics
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,13714.msg88128.html#msg88128
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,4637

Elements of the design seem to be of a similar genre to those on the metal plate but this is probably not sufficient to attribute them to the Rodefer Gleason Glass Co. I got the impression from Terry that several US companies used this method of decoration when I was last looking into it. I don't know if European glass companies / decorators did also or not. You might consider contacting CMoG for help.

[krsilber]

True that there was a lot of plate etched glass produced in the US, but this looks European to me.  The etch quality is often higher in European glass, and the combination of gilt and bare designs isn't common in American work (with the exception of gold/silver/platinum overlaid bands).  I'd guess French, Bacarrat or St. Louis.  I was just yesterday looking at the intriguing Krug and Mundt catalog on the site http://www.glas-musterbuch.de/Krug-Mundt-1906.98.0.html and they seemed to have offered quite a few plate etched designs, too (EDIT:  oh - just verified what I suspected:   Krug and Mundt were wholesalers, not makers.  Thought I recognized some stuff from a Bacarrat catalog there!).  I doubt it's Moser; from what I can tell, their etched patterns seem fairly limited.

[pyrology]

I was going to ask how could I tell the difference between acid etch and needle etch. I have some Tiffin Byzantine etched pieces to compare it to. What I can say is this - The etch on these champagnes is much finer, more precise with less variations in width of a single line than the Tiffin pieces. The Byzantine etch also appears to be deeper than this etch.
I also did an ultra close inspection of each piece, no acid etched siggies on any of them. I did notice though that there was a slight variation in the depth of the glass and the rims are not perfectly even. there is a slight. almost undetectable wave in the rim. I also noticed that where the base meets the stems was not always in round, some looked a little on the oval side. So I am fairly certain that they are hand blown and at least the stems were hand cut  and polished (you can also see slight polish marks).

I also found remnants of gold on some of the feather hearts - I don't know if this was a mistake or if at one time they too were gold.

Rubbing a finger across the etches on both pieces (the Tiffin and the champagnes) feels very similar to the touch. The foot appears to be applied, however the stem and bowl appear to be a single piece.

I'm going to try taking some closer photos with a higher macro (and megapixel) camera to see if I can capture in photos what I am seeing in hand. I'll be back with some additional photos.

Thanks so much for you help to this point!

Karen

[pyrology]

Here's some better photos of the etch close up. Under this magnification I am thinking that this is acid etched?


Karen

[krsilber]

Yes, yours is acid etched, a type of etching called plate etching (US term).  See this thread for a description:  http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,13714.0.html.  Needle etching uses a machine with templates that determine the pattern.  A set of needles scratches through beeswax or some other "resist", and the piece is dipped in acid, creating the etched pattern where the resist has been scratched through.

I was just trying to take a better photo of this example when my camera batteries died.  So it's a little blurry, but you can still see the pattern.  I imagine three different templates were used, one for each band.  The needles never leave the glass as it's being rotated.

[pyrology]

Hi Kristi! (See you on the PGP boards frequently!)

That's what I thought, it almost looks like it was done with a pen and that the pen never left the glass. The gold is the same way, almost looks like it was poured on, in the macro shots (with magnification) it almost looks like a paint pen or similar to using a marker, with occasional breaks that look like blobs of ink left behind by a fountain pen (when it bleeds etc).

Karen

[pyrology]

Pete Please forgive my ignorance, but what is CMoG ?

Karen

[pyrology]

Kristi - I used the link you provided to check out the Baccarat shapes, These are very similar to shapes number 1093  in the tableware section of the 1916 catalogue #50. What do you think?

Karen