9\" Antique Aqua Blue Opalescent Art Glass Water Pitcher - Optic Swirl Pattern
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9\" Antique Aqua Blue Opalescent Art Glass Water Pitcher - Optic Swirl Pattern:
$145.00
Elsie\'s Antiques (my partner and I) purchased this beautiful waterpitcher about 18 months ago at a local sale. We were swayed by the grace ofits basic shape, the perfection of its optic-swirl ridges, and the artistry ofits double? triple? crimped mouth, with one ruffle making up the spout. Itstands ~9” tall, ~6” across its widest point, and ~3-1/2” across the bottom, soitis a substantial piece.. The only questions in our minds were who made itand when?
The onlyproblems with art glass are that it is often impossible to tell how old anexample might be and that without a signature it is impossible to tell who themaker might be. Therefore, we are often reliant on whether a piece “looks” or “feels”like the work of a particular artist.
Theobvious first guess we had for our pitcher was that it was Fenton, probablymanufactured in the 1950s. We based that conclusion on the heft of the glass,the vibrancy of the color, its overall general shape as well as the excellenceof the work’s fine points such as the regularity of the optic swirl, theperfection of the ruffling, and the cleanness of the join of the handle to thebody.
But(there’s always a but), when I went looking, I could not find a piece withexactly the same overall shape and ruffling. The color was not a problem, norwas the perfection of the bottom with its faint remains of a pontil But Fentonis famous for producing the same shapes year after year, often in differentcolors and patterns. That I could find no example of our piece meant that itwas rare – and probably not Fenton.
So Igoogled “water pitcher glass ruffled” and took a gander at the images broughtup by the search. Nothing doing. I’ve added some of the closest examples.
The pretty white vase shown first (after the 3 pics of our vase) is more wrong thanright. While it has the opticswirl, the body is too squat, the handle is color-free and there is no rufflingat the mouth. But it isn’t hard to see that it is somehow related to our piece.
Theseller claims that it is antique, but then what is antique? The definition Ihave most often seen is that a piece is at least 25 years old. Any Fenton glassarticle produced before 1970 carried no mark; After the period 1970-72, Fentonadded an embossed logo, so any piece of Fenton without a logo is at least 45years old and, therefore, antique. But if it’s not Fenton? Who knows?
Even the member offering the second pitcher above could notidentify its maker, but it’s obviously not the same one as our pitcher. Thedistance between the swirls is too wide, and the lack of ruffle at the mouth isa dead giveaway. Furthermore, the distinct demarcation between the ball-shapedbody and the neck fails to capture the grace of our pitcher.
Doubleday House Antiques has for sale what I consider the closestrelative of those I identified as “look alikes.” But its example also lacks atrue ruffle at the top, and its overall conformation is like a ball vase. Isuspect it is made by one of the great glass houses of the 19th & 20thcenturies, but I don’t have enough of a “feel” for each house to be able toidentify it.
If ourpitcher is Fenton, it is certainly a rare piece. Far more likely, it is thework of one of the other houses and older than is likely if it were Fenton.
So I decidedto ignore the question of who? And move onto how much?
Besidesthe three pitchers I have shown you, priced at $225, $157.50, and $125, I hadpursued many, many listings of pieces obviously of the high quality of ourpitcher, and they overwhelmingly had prices in that neighborhood, so I lookedup what we had paid for it, and came up with $157.50 (now lowered to $145). Halfway between $125 and$225 is $175, which seemed high, but I felt that our pitcher is just asvaluable as the middle piece.
If youdisagree with my logic in any of this, feel free to send me a message laying out what you know that I don\'t. And feel free to make me an offer. You never know, I mightjust accept it.
9\" Antique Aqua Blue Opalescent Art Glass Water Pitcher - Optic Swirl Pattern:
$145.00