Topic: Edward Moore & Co.

[Hearn]

I have recently purchased this butter dish and recognized it as a piece made by Edward Moore.  The pattern and the caramel brown color was the identifying feature.  The piece does not have a registration mark.  I have been through Manley, Thompson, Lattimore and Hajdamach and have not been able to find a match.  The piece has some of the characteristics of pattern #58275 and also #94820 but not quite the same as either one.  I would appreciate some identification help and if it included a catalogue page that would be a bonus.

I plan to share the image and hopefully the identification with an antique glass collecting group in Greentown, Indiana that extensively collects glass that is called chocolate glass and it was made by the Indiana Tumbler and Goblet Works in Greentown, Indiana from 1894 to 1903.

Thanks for the anticipated help.

Carl Hearn

[Paul S.]

hello Hearn - welcome to the GMB.            Attractive piece and lucky to have survived without damage.

Hope someone is able to help with your request  -  you mention having looked in Lattimore, so assume you have seen the caramel sugar Registered as 58275, opposite page 89            Lattimore's colour picture shows what appears to be a vitro-porcelain opaque piece, without the opalescence which I'm seeing in your butter  -  perhaps there were two versions of caramel  -  certainly there appears substantial difference in the colours. 

Would agree that the books are of little help  -  Raymond Slack omits any colour pix of caramel, although he speaks at some length quoting verbatim from Moore's own words regarding the factory's patents for 'new colours in opaque glass'.
Included in the recipe are calcined oats and cereals  -  the sort of ingredients that are often found in opalescent glass  -  although arsenic seems absent  -  and Moore himself is quoted as describing this colour as 'a soft shade of light brown or fawn colour'.
So quite why there is this apparent difference between Lattimore's caramel and your piece is a mystery at the moment - but we have some very clever people here so fingers crossed.
Would agree with your comments that this looks very much like a Moore piece  -  this type of heavy Gadrooning was a design feature of theirs.

[Simba]

Have you  tried contacting Angus MacDonald in the Museum at South Shields he is researching Henry Moore's work for a book he is writing ...he is very knowledgeable on his work and may be able to help you.

[Sid]

Hello Carl

Small world.  As I said the other night when we looked at this piece - I'm pretty sure this is Edward Moore.  The colour fits, the handle is seen on several of their patterns and the gadroon design matches the Registered Design No. 58275 as well.  Just no registry number on it. Their fawn colour was inconsistent ranging from a light tan to almost an orange.  These differences could be due to batch formula variations or the heating during the glass melting process.

Sid

[Sid]

Carl

The Moore catalog I have predates this period so it isn't much help.  This caramel colour was also made by Vallerystahl, SV and other continental glass makers so we can't entirely rule them out.

Sid

[Hearn]

Hi Paul S:

Yes, I'm aware of the image in Lattimore's book and in fact have the same piece sitting beside the butter dish on the shelf.  I'm not concerned about the color variance, this is heat sensitive glass and a slightly different temperature in the manufacturing process will produce a different result.

Let me draw your attention to Thompson's book and the drawing of pattern #94820 on page 22.  This appears to be the butter dish complete with the oval shape and the distinctive handle.  In the drawing the gadroons appear to be vertical on the piece of glass.  Take a look at the image I attached and the gadroons move around the piece of glass in a swirl direction.  The same swirl direction that appears on pattern #58275 in Lattimore's book.

Maybe I'm trying to read too much into the drawing in Thompson's book.  I have seen pieces of Moore's caramel glass in two different patterns #58275 and #71753 so is this butter dish Moore's pattern #94820.  We count so much on a registration mark for a definitive answer and this butter dish without the mark opens up the interpretation of the line drawing image of pattern #94820.

Carl Hearn

[Sid]

Carl

I have found a piece marked SV that looks identical to yours on this site:  http://www.opalinedefoire.com/

Go the bottom of the opening page and click on Enter
On the next page, go the left and click on Collection
On the Collection page, click on Burriers
On the burriers page, scroll down to see a blue example.

It appears to say that the blue butter is marked SV which seems to imply Schmid Verreries is the maker of that dish. It is so similar to Moore's pieces that one has to wonder if it is a copy or possibly a mould transfer.

I know we looked for marks the other night but could you please check to see if your dish is marked SV anywhere? 

Sid

[Paul S.]

the SV shape and design features shown in Syd's link do look to be identical to your butter, and other items from the same link indicate that products made in opalescent glass were not uncommon.           
I appreciate Syd's comments regarding colour variation - and am well aware that he knows far more than me about pressed material - but I remain to be convinced that Moore's colour range would have included opalescence.        If you read Thompson's comments (page 20) about Moore's colours she says......"Most of these bowls are in plain glass but they were made also in an opaque caramel colour."                       To me this isn't suggesting opalescence  -  of course, if someone has a piece of Moore in opalescent then I shall eat my hat.         

Regret I don't presently have an image/drawing to show of Moore's British Registration 94820 dated  01/03/1888, with which to make a comparison with your butter - but your comments regarding how the gadroons are viewed, may well be correct - thus confirming your butter isn't related to Moore's Registration 94820.             But then again factory catalogue drawings are known to differ from the real thing on occasions, although I suspect you're correct in this instance.
Moore's Registrations from this period often share some common feature i.e. the gadroon being the most common, though obviously the whole point of subsequent Registrations was to protect some new design.

If we ignore the wrythen gadroon for the moment, since that element appears to be protected by Registration 58275, then as far as the factory's other related designs are concerned it does appear from Thompson's extract (page 22) of Moore's catalogue, that distinctive elements of potentially matching designs are/were .............
Registration 80013  -  shape plus vertical pillars
Registration 94820  -  shape plus vertical flattened gadroon   ......          and it's potentially this last feature that differs from your butter.

Another feature that potentially mis-matches your piece with Thompson's drawing of the butter from Rd. 94820, is the foot rim.
Your single picture is too high an angle to see any rim, but the appearance of how low your butter sits is suggesting maybe not the sort of foot rim on Moore's suite for Rd. 94820  -  but I could be wrong.                     The foot rim on the VS butter shown in Syd's link appears to be a smaller and simpler rim  -  does the VS rim match the rim on your butter?

Hope all of this is unnecessary, and that Syd's link has provided the answer, but if people are remain unsure, then I can visit The National Archives in London in the coming week and take some snaps of related Registrations, to hopefully assist.

Small plea, please, in the cause of avoiding possible mis-understandings..............     my opinion is that it may avoid confusion if we all refer to the British Board of Trade Rd. Nos.  -  i.e. those Nos. used in this thread  -   as 'Registration Nos.', and not pattern or hashtag Nos.
This is to avoid the obvious confusion with numbers used in factory catalogues, which are referred to, usually, as pattern Nos. 

P.S.    meant to say - congratulations to Syd for his detective work in finding the matching pattern in the SV link.

 

[Hearn]

Good Morning:

Paul good point taken about the registration marks not being the pattern number, I'll keep this point in mind in any future conversations.

Sid; thanks for the ID I think you are right on with the reference to Schmid Verreries although the actual piece does not have the SV mark anywhere to be found.

Interesting research because I think we can say that the Greentown, Indiana "Chocolate Glass" may have had its origins in England and/or France.  The other obvious point is how closely one company would copy the pattern of another country.  When I first picked up this butter dish I had little doubt that it was Edward Moore just because of the distinctive gadroon pattern.  I think I can safely say that the gadroon pattern was not closely copies in any of the Greentown, Indiana patterns.

Thanks for all of the replies.  Just one question for Simba: is Angus Macdonald researching the work of Edward Moore or Henry Moore?  Are both names part of glass history in England?

Carl

[Simba]

Hearn.....definitely Edward Moore