Fair Trade Port Bottle
Mid 18th. century dark brown bottle with pontil base, showing the modern shape which was just coming in at this time, recovered from the sailing barque “Peggy”, which foundered in 1784. The sailing barque “Peggy” was engaged in the transhipment of French wine and brandy, and re-bottling it in port bottles in order to avoid the full rate of excise duty, on the orders of a Renfrew merchant, Mr. Duncan. Sailing from Portugal in 1784, the barque reached the western coast of Scotland, having been detected and pursued by the Excise men. The skipper tried to put some of his cargo...
Read MoreBottle with Original Contents 2
This is of the early 18th. century, recovered from the wreck of the Dutch East India Merchantman “T’Vliegenthart”, which foundered in 1735. It is difficult to say if this bottle is of Dutch or English make.
Read MoreBottle with Original Contents 1
This bottle dates from the 17th. century, and is typically onion shaped with a pontil base and iridescent surface. The top is sealed, retaining its original contents.
Read MoreExtra Large Bowl and Vase
This matching vase and bowl, designed for use together as a punch bowl, or separately as displayed, is something of a puzzle. It was bought originally in the early 1930s as Waterford glass, and the thickness of the walls and the characteristic patterns of the cutting, are typical of early to mid nineteenth century work, but the shape of the vase and bowl suggest a much later date. It may derive from one of the many small glass-works which flourished in and around the city during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Read MoreDessert Glass, ca. 1740
This extremely rare glass with a rib-moulded narrow bell-shaped bowl has an applied B-shaped scroll handle over a flattened knop and panel-moulded dome foot. (Tim Udell illustrates an identical glass in his article ‘Glasses for the Dessert’ Glass Circle Journal 5, 1986, which he describes as rare and knows of no other example.)
Read MoreThree Colour Cameo Vase, ca. 1890
The ovoid form of similar citron tint to the above large example, with a slender waisted neck and flared rim, encased in ruby and opaque white, carved with a spray of dog-roses and a butterfly, with banding on the everted foot and rim.
Read MoreMedieval Inscribed Glass Jug, ca. 12th.-14th.cent
Mould-blown in pale green with dark blue bands to shoulder, neck and rim, the body globular with moulded text, the neck tubular with a flared rim and round section handle. This typical jug is in remarkably fine condition.
Read MoreRoman Glass Vessel Group, ca. 2nd.-3rd. cent. A.D
The blue and green glass jars, with flared necks and rims, include pinched decoration and detail and moulded leaf-pattern to the bodies, and the bases have a concave centre which allows the piece to stand firmly. All, save the two round bottomed flasks with everted rims, which would possibly have been used for sprinkling powder or flavourings, were probably used as containers for oil, and are associated with Roman and Hellenistic cemetery sites.
Read MoreMedieval Rock Crystal Reliquary
This extremely rare and fine Fatimid/Mesopotamian crystal jar, (dating to ca. 800-900 A.D.) was re-used in the 12th.-13th. century A.D. as a reliquary. The cylindrical crystal vessel has ribbed bands cut to the upper body and a turned foot; the aperture sealed with a red wax-based compound. Such crystal vessels were commonly looted during the Crusades, and re-used to hold Christian relics, many of them ending up in European Cathedrals. See B.W. Robinson, Islamic Art in the Keir Collection, p.289 for further discussion of this example.
Read MoreSweetmeat Glass, English, ca. 1685
The flared bowl with folded rim and moulded gadrooned base, is presented on a triple-knopped stem and folded conical foot. A transitional piece, moving from the ‘Venetian’ style of glass fashionable up to the mid-17th. century, it is an early piece in the newly discovered ‘flint’ or lead crystal, which was to make English glass pre-eminent in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. See Keith Kelsall, The Footed Salver p.65, for a discussion of a very similar example.
Read MoreEpergne in Silver Wire-work holder, 1905, Birmingham
The glass, cased green with white trailing is most likely to have been made in Stourbridge, and is of exceptional quality. The manufacturer of the silver wirework holder is unknown, the maker’s mark being unclear. The design owes much to the Arts and Crafts movement, and is likely to have been manufactured by a small crafts worker, rather than the output from a large firm. The modest size and simplification of this example shows how radically design had changed from the previous ornate examples of high Victorian style.
Read MoreEpergne in Vaseline glass, probably by Stuart and Sons Ca. 1900
This restrained example shows the influence of the Art Nouveau movement, and the gradual simplification of glass design at the end of the nineteenth century, for which Stuart became noted.
Read MoreEpergne with Vaseline glass and blue edging
Maker uncertain, possibly Richardsons. It is unusual to find an Epergne in this colour combination – blue rather fell out of favour during the mid-nineteenth century. The ‘box-pleated’ rather than frilled edge is also highly unusual.
Read MoreCranberry Epergne, ca. 1860-1880, probably by Richardsons of Stourbridge
Cranberry was one of the most popular colours in the mid-nineteenth century, although stories of the glass works owner ‘improving’ the colour by tossing a gold sovereign into the pot are just stories, and have no basis in fact. This pattern is typical of the hundreds of similar epergnes produced in the Victorian period, right up to the First World War, but which are now increasingly rare, because of their fragility.
Read MoreGlass Comport and Tazza, 1864, by Molineaux & Webb
The factory was situated in Ancoats, Manchester, and until its demise in 1929 was owned and run by the Webb family. (They were no relation to the Stourbridge dynasty of the same name.)
Read MorePlain Cut Glass Tazza, ca. 1830. Maker unknown, possibly Irish
Unusually, this large elevated tazza has a perfectly plain un-cut foot, which may indicate it was designed to be placed in a shallow bowl or on another tazza, so that its plain foot would have been hidden by a further display of fruit or flowers.
Read MoreTazza, ca. 1740
The domed foot rises to a blown fluted baluster stem below the circular plate with a shallow upstand rim. This would have been used for supporting an arrangement of sweetmeat dishes and ‘jellies’, small glasses containing various desserts, which were a feature of 18th. century dining tables. The surface of the plate is perfectly flat, unlike later examples at the end of the century which are much more dished in shape, to contain fruit or flowers. The hollow blown stem might indicate that this was intended to hold dishes and glasses of ice creams and sorbets, highly popular 18th. century...
Read MoreBlue Tinted Gilt Decanter and Stopper, ca. 1790-1810
Blue Tinted Gilt Decanter and Stopper, ca. 1790-1810 by Isaac Jacobs, the club form gilt with a rectangular label inscribed Rum, suspended by a simulated chain and tied ribbon, the faceted stopper with a initial R and a leaf sprig. Signed I Jacobs, Bristol 8. (A very similar example, marked for Brandy is illustrated in Andy McConnell, The Decanter, pg. 218, pl. 312.)
Read MoreNon Such Decanter Stand or Dish by Isaac Jacobs
‘Non Such’ Decanter Stand or Dish by Isaac Jacobs, signed I. Jacobs Bristol, in gilding on the base. ca. 1805. Gilt with a central rosette within a Greek-key band to the rim.
Read MoreSet of Blue Tinted Wine Glass Coolers, ca. 1805
Each deep cylindrical form with opposing lips with a neo-classical frieze of alternate palmettes and seeded buds with line borders. They were used to rinse or cool wine glasses in iced water, the glasses being suspended from the lip.
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The Bristol Blue Glass Museum holds over 350 items of glass, showing the development of the manufacture of glass from ca. 1500 B.C. to the present day. It contains pieces of Egyptian, Roman, Viking, Anglo Saxon and Medieval glass, but the main interest of the collection lies in the examples of manufacture from all the principal English glass-works of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
