Posted 4 years ago
Gaia
(1 item)
Art glass bowl mouth blown clear and red.Heavy thick glass formed with the pontil mark where it is cut away from the blow pipe is ground smooth. Excellent vintage condition
SIZE: 5.5 inches across top, about 3 inches.
I am not sure it is a Murano Blown Glas or Japanese Soga Glas.
Very pretty bowl, which probably started its life as an ashtray. The treatment of the base is very different from my Soga ashtray which seems to have been made with a couple of techniques, probably first blown into a one piece mold and then hot worked to form it into an ashtray. The bottom of the Soga bowl is not ground like yours is.
The initial steps to gather and color the glass for both bowls were probably very similar. The colors are slightly different, I think.
Your piece was probably blown on a blowpipe and formed by hand into its current shape to get the thinner walls and fluted shape of the top and then cut from the pipe, then the bottom and the pontil were ground .
The walls on the Soga bowl are thick with no folds and taper slightly toward the bottom while the walls of your bowl are much thinner and the top is folded to produce the indentations.
I don't think that Soga made your bowl, but think that there is a good chance that it is Japanese. I cannot guess at who the maker was, but maybe Karen (racer4four) will have a guess.
I am not sure how much you know about glass making but here are a couple of links which may be of interest.
https://dmgschoolproject.org/the-glass-blowing-process/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QExvrgjEqoQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IU7bvY5n0I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiwAapEVouU
Good info Kevin but I do think it is Soga. For a brief period in the 60s they made off hand glass like this, usually in these colours, occasionally some blue thrown in. It is a style well outside their usual pressed glass, yet it is very distinctive for colour and shape.
Gaia These were made in some volume but are no longer very common. Me, of course I like it!
Gaia, I would definitely accept Karen's assessment as she has been collecting Japanese glass much longer and has seen a lot more of it that I have. Thanks, as always, for your experience and input Karen!