Topic: Engraved Jug with Scary Baby, Dancers and Angels

[ckscot]

This 11" high jug features a slightly scary looking naked baby and some over-excited looking dancers amongst tendrils and foliage, (the matching wine glass only has the foliage and angels).  Can anyone give me an idea of where this might have been made from and from what period?  And what does all this engraving represent - I've googled and can't find a classical theme that fits? The base has a wide polished pontil mark.
Many thanks in advance.

[chopin-liszt]

I can't quite make out what you're calling foliage on the glass, but it looks a little bit like eidelweiss to me.
A motif I associate with Bohemian origins.
That baby is pure evil!

[ckscot]

Here are better pictures of the "foliage".  The one on the wine glass is clearer, but on the jug there is a bell like flower on one end, which doesn't so much look like edelweiss.
And yes, I wouldn't want to wake up with this baby beside me in the mornings. . . . .

[chopin-liszt]

It's not looking like eidelweiss, any more. The "clusters" are positioned all up a stem and don't have the internal flowery bit.
They did look as if they could be, at first. Sorry for the wild goose chase.

This is looking more and more like an individual art sort of set, rather than anything mass produced.

[Ekimp]

Maybe the ugly baby is a changeling. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changeling

[ckscot]

Hmm, I hadn't thought of that.  Could be, then what are the dancers all about? I also somehow don't get the sense that this is British - not sure why.  Any thoughts?

[chopin-liszt]

It does appear to be depicting something quite fantastical. Which is not really a "british" glass style.
The cutting of the musculature on the baby is quite Eastern European - Scandi or Czech, but fits better with more modern styles than traditional fairy tales.

I'm quite keen on the changeling idea, it would fit with the "angels" or fairies.
I'm not sure what one is doing with something that looks like a waffle iron, though.

[Ekimp]

Learning all about fairies today! Perhaps whereas in Britain we might give silver christening sets, in some some places you get a weird jug to ward off evil spirits.

The engraving on the jug looks to be a copy of the painting near the top of this page: http://www.fairyist.com/tag/fairy-questions/page/2/ You might be able to do a reverse image search and find out about the origins of the painting. The Scandinavians seem to talk of trolls rather than fairies, so probably not from them. No mention of waffle irons so far....

[chopin-liszt]

That has to be the image copied onto glass - brilliant sleuthing!

I can't help wondering now, though if changelings were invented in order to give folk an excuse to get rid of babies born with disabilites...
Schubert wrote the song The Erl Konig - which was about a fairy king who stole and killed a child. So these stories are in German literature.

[Ekimp]

Thanks Makes you glad we live when we do...but maybe in 200 years, our ancestors will say something similar. The wiki link mentions folklore in Germany as well as parts of Britain and Ireland, Scandinavia (but trolls), Poland, and Spain.