Scottish Green and Pink with gold aventurine, Art Glass Vase"Vasart, Mid 20 Century

Hello
CW Friends
I want to share another find from my friend collector, he made me visit other rooms full of glass, i am just overwhelm with all those nice piece of glass, he let me have another Scottish glass, this time Vasart, much later piece, but as beautiful, maybe not that rare like Cloisonné Vase, but very pretty as well, this beautiful little vase have have a nice coloration of mottled pink with green mottled upper body decorated with swirly curls and gold aventurine flakes, unmarked, but typical decor of Vasart Glass.

This vase stand, 4.25 inch tall, 2 inch wide, 2.25 at the rim, on a 1.75 inch base.

Thanks for Viewing.
Alan

In September 1946, Salvador Ysart and two of his sons, Vincent and Augustine, left Moncrieff’s to start up their own factory, Ysart Brothers Glass, at the Shore Works, Shore Road in Perth. The move away from Moncrieff’s (and Paul) was necessary for several reasons, both artistic and personal; but primarily it was because Salvador was eager to restart art glass production and post-war restrictions would not allow Moncrieff’s to do so. The buildings they used had belonged to Moncrieff’s but had become disused during the thirties recession.

They named the new glass Vasart from their initials ‘V’, ‘A’ and ‘S’ plus ‘art’ from Ysart. Catherine Ysart, Vincent’s wife, used acid to sign the base of each piece with a flowing script: Vasart signature illustrated on Labels and Signatures page and here. The wall vase, shown in Vasart catalogue as V026, bears the additional inscription ‘Made in Scotland’ in the same script. Initially, a circular black on white label, see labels page, was also used. Although the Ysarts did not produce a catalogue, all the shapes were given a letter and number for identification, a ‘V’ prefix denoting a vase and a ‘B’ prefix a bowl. Catherine Ysart remembers that these codes were used on the black and white label. Only a few examples of the label are known to the author, and only one of which, shown, includes a code: Y - 81 - 3/50. That code does not fit with Catherine’s recollection, as it is on a flat dish shape B002. With unmarked labels, it is possible that the ink has faded away with repeated washing as the paper was highly absorbent. Although Salvador had insisted that the new glass should be distinctly different from Monart, there is a strong affinity of shapes and styles between the production of the two factories. Also, all glass made by the Ysart family was individually blown, and none of it exhibits the precise finish of the craftsman-produced pieces from other major glass factories. Many of the workers trained by the Ysarts at the Shore Works in Perth worked or are still working at glass factories throughout Britain. The only moulds used were: dip moulds for stripes and spoke moulds for wavy edges.

The first employees to join Salvador, Vincent and Augustine at the Shore Works were Bob Wishart, Harry Lever and a boy. To begin with business was brisk and by late 1949, Ysart Brothers Glass had exhibited Vasart with great success at the Scottish Industries Exhibition attended by Queen Elizabeth, mother of Queen Elizabeth II. However, production of Vasart began to decline steadily after 1950. By 1956, both Salvador and Augustine had died and Vincent found running the administration side of the business an increasingly difficult and irksome task. At this time George Dunlop of Pirelli Glass Limited, Brosnan Lane, Potters Bar, joined Vincent to set up Vasart Glass Limited at the same premises. George Dunlop had formed Pirelli Glass during 1945 and was shown in the company formation records as a Scientific Glassworker. Pirelli Glass manufactured lampworked glass animals and giftware glass and had first become involved with Vasart through the paperweights, which they helped to market. Many of the decorating contracts for the souvenir trade had come to Vasart through George Dunlop.

The Ysart family were all gifted musicians and enjoyed evenings at home playing both guitars and mandolins. Amongst themselves they spoke Spanish but all spoke good English with, to an English ear, strong Scottish accents! Vincent and Antoine were the keenest musicians and both played in a local dance band ‘The Victoria Dance Band’ giving many concerts for the YMCA. Vincent played saxophone, violin and clarinet and Antoine, piano and accordion. Paul’s son Salvador recalls that he wrote to Vincent asking if the band would play for his Cadets’ party one year and Vincent replied that he would be happy to do so and attached a list of the band’s fees.

After the company was renamed, the signature was quickly discontinued, being replaced by a shaped black and silver label applied to the side of the piece, see labels page; note that Pirelli used the same label design. It is not unusual to find examples bearing this label. However, a few pieces have been seen with both a signature and the black and silver label. As a side-line to normal production runs, Vasart Glass decorated ready-supplied glassware for Pirelli: Martini glasses ‘Just by itself or on the rocks’ glasses, shown in Vasart catalogue as D001 & D002, Babycham champagne glasses (D003) and souvenir glasses with a lion transfer and town name. Workers at Vasart Glass included Joe Dickson, grinder; Jack Allan, blower; Pat Allan, Nelly Reed and Catherine Ysart, finishers and paperweight assemblers. Joe Dickson looked after the ‘annealing tunnel’, which was constructed from corrugated iron with milk crates to hold the pieces. The finished pieces spent about a week being pushed slowly along the tunnel. When they reached the far end, Joe ground the bases and Catherine signed them, after which Joe packed the individual orders.

In 1960 Stuart Drysdale, a local lawyer, was brought in as manager of Vasart Glass; he became a director in 1961. During 1963 the Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, commissioned the Vasart factory to produce lighting globes in various sizes for Downing Street. Jesus Braso was persuaded out of retirement to help Vincent. Twenty large globes were produced for the Cabinet room at 10 Downing Street, with another 135 in smaller sizes for use in 10, 11 and 12 Downing Street. The large globes required up to 11 men to manhandle each one and it took about 45 minutes to make one. They each cost about £400 to produce, and as they were sold for £150 the loss to the company must have been substantial. Later, when a change of Government caused their removal, some of the globes were shipped to the USA but, due to vibrations and bad packing, all had been shattered by the time the consignment arrived. A photograph of the Strathearn showroom on page 39 of Ysart Glass shows some of the globes; and one now hangs in the Perth Museum. The moulds for the large globes had been cast by the Perth Foundry and turning was done by Roberston & Hunter.

On a visit to New York in 1963, Mr A K Bergius of the whisky distillers William Teacher & Sons was given a Teacher’s Whisky bottle which had been accidentally left overnight in a potter’s oven, giving it the appearance of having been squashed. The squashed bottle made a good ashtray and, on his return, Mr Bergius showed it to almost every glass manufacturer in the country. No manufacturer was willing to try and reproduce the design until it was taken to the Vasart works. Vincent agreed to attempt to reproduce the ‘accident’ and spent many long evenings preparing and experimenting with a special furnace with bricks and gas jets until eventually he was successful. One ashtray, given to the author by Catherine Ysart, came from the very first successful batch made by Vincent. The ashtray is shown here and is catalogue item D005, together with some later variations, D006 & D007. Production of the ashtrays reached about 500 per month and Teacher’s, finding them popular, wanted more for publicity purposes. Realising that the Vasart premises were not suited to an increase in capacity, it was decided in 1964 that Teacher’s would take over Vasart Glass Limited and build a new, larger glassworks, renaming the company Strathearn Glass. The Shore Road works, with twelve glassmakers, finally closed on 26th December, 1964.

Courtesy of: http://www.ysartglass.com/Ysart/Vasartglass.htm