Ewer - Bohemia • Free-blown decanter • ruby-red glass • pull-out pouring lip • handle • 1900 - - Glass

Bohemia • Free-blown pitcher in tinted ruby-red glass • undecorated, with a pulled pouring lip and attached handle • ca. 1900-1930

This Bohemian pitcher in tinted ruby-red glass reads most clearly on the scales. At 21 cm high it weighs 1245 grams and measures the rim four millimeters, where the thin-walled Victorian cranberry glass runs 1 to 2 mm. A heavier glass piece indeed: a cool, solid mass in which the intense red shades into crimson. Through the wall you can see air bubbles and bubble irregularities—evidence of hand-blown work.

For this object a Buy Now price is also set, for those who want to acquire it immediately without waiting.

Interior display and presence:

Through-tinted ruby red also occupies a space without decoration. When held to the light the pitcher glows to an intense red, with the air bubbles as fine points of light; in a room the mass concentrates into an almost opaque form.

Object description:

Globular, lightly pressed body that tapers to a stand ring and transitions into a short cylindrical neck, defined by a sharp shoulder line. The fire-polished rim is drawn out on one side into a broad pouring lip; opposite it, a separately attached, elongated ear-shaped handle in the same red mass. The glass is tinted, not overlaid or stained: in the thin neck wall the color is as saturated as in the thick base, and the wall thickness is slightly irregular. Decoration entirely absent. The base has a high sunk bottom with a cut, hollowed pontil. There is no factory mark, signature, or label residue.

Specifications:

Material: tinted ruby-red calc-alkali glass, mouth-blown

Dimensions: h 21 x w 18 x d 15 cm, width including handle

Weight: 1245 grams

Provenance:

From the collection of Decaders Gallery.

Condition:

Good. There are no chips, edge nicks, hairlines, or restorations observable on the pouring lip, rim, or handle joints. The glass mass shows air bubbles, bubble irregularities, and fine striations: production-related characteristics of mouth-blown glass and explicitly not damage, for bubble-free glass is the hallmark of mechanized production. The stand ring is heavily worn all around, consistent with long-term domestic use. That, however, does not diminish the decorative value of this special art object; it also contributes to its character. See the images. The object is offered as decorative art, not for use with foodstuffs.

Shipping:

The object is shipped very professionally and with great care, packed in double cardboard boxes with high-quality cushioning to ensure safe transport. We always ship with an extra secure Track and Trace service. Be sure to check the feedback left by previously satisfied buyers.

References and sources:

Ruby-red glass comes in three pathways, and they date the piece. Gold ruby ranges from pink to raspberry; copper ruby, nineteenth-century and Bohemian, is darker and was almost always laid as a thin overlay on colorless glass and cut. Both fall short of the clear tint and the tinted, untreated mass. Selenium red remains, and the Rakow Library of the Corning Museum of Glass notes that it only came into use in the very late nineteenth century and was probably common around 1910. The clear, intense tint of this pitcher thus places it in the first decades of the twentieth century.

What is certain excludes other directions. Rubian stain is excluded because the color runs through the entire mass, the cut Bohemian segment on the absence of cutting work. American pressed glass is ruled out for lack of pressed seams and pattern, Murano art glass for sommerso and canework. The Victorian cranberry glass is excluded due to wall thickness and the self-colored handle, where that type characteristic would carry a colorless one. The dull, short-resounding tone indicates calc-alkali glass and not lead crystal. What remains points to North Bohemia. The Haida and Steinschonau region around 1900 housed the largest concentration of glassworks in the world, was export-oriented, and had a core specialty in tinted hollow glass. German production in Thuringia and the Bavarian Forest existed, but at a fraction of that volume and without an observable feature excluding it: Bohemia is the most likely origin, not the only possible one. A factory cannot be determined: the piece is anonymous, and the maker is not claimed.

You can follow me above by bookmarking my page and, next to 'DECADERS Gallery,' clicking follow (heart).