Posted 3 years ago
BHIFOS
(415 items)
Found this beauty recently on TM a couple of the spines on the fish are damaged but I could live with that they are terribly exposed and pretty sure this will be from the late 1800s so it's been around a while. Unfortunately it went missing when with NZPost then 30+ days later it shows up on their tracking (the next step from pick-up) yeah you know what that means some ********* dropped it heard the chink and walked away. Arrived in one piece but only just, there is a large crack in the blue around one of the fish/feet almost making a full circle which will one day probably connect. Means I got fully refunded but would rather have paid the money and it be relatively in one piece. Looks quite small next to the Lizards but is 150mm high x 290mm wide. The body of the bowl is blue with what looks to be gold leaf and the a clear trim and applied fish or are they meant to be dolphins, I know the Victorians had some pretty weird ideas of what they looked like, even gave them scales.
If you use the magnify function on the second picture you can see the crack extends out into the tail of the fish on the left, although that's probably where it started with one of the feet getting a knock through the packaging.
Update: I have spent a lot of time googling this and wasn't having a lot of luck, wondered if it was another S&W piece but that didn't work and then this morning I tried this particular set of words "victorian glass bowl with applied fish feet" and up came 2 pictures with very similar fish one unattributed the other a piece from mhgcgolfclub on CW and this is attributed to John Walsh Wash of Birmingham (not Stourbridge) so this is the best I have so far. I like how they call it a "Jardiniere".
https://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/158894-cranberry-and-vaseline-glass-jardiniere-wi
https://www.rubylane.com/item/636424-MP0001642/Victorian-art-glass-bowl-fish-feet
This is such a special piece of Victorian art glass at its most flamboyant!
What a shame it was damaged in transit, but it still displays beautifully.
I feel that John Walsh Walsh is most likely the manufacturer. One of my reference books (Gulliver) pictures a few examples of similar bowls with fish feet attributed to JWW.
Also - I've always suspected that this endearingly odd fish vase/single epergne is one of their pieces as well:
https://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/224822-victorian-cased-glass-fish-vase-centrepi
The crackle decor makes your bowl extra fancy...funnily enough I'm awaiting a crackle piece in the mail sometime soon. It is a three piece vase with hanging baskets (fingers crossed it gets to me safely).
Thanks for your well informed comments Marin.
I had forgotten about that one and you're right the dorsal and pectoral fins are very similar.
Hopefully Hermes is keeping an eye on your new piece.
My pleasure, & always happy to be of help!
Will post my crackle extravaganza as soon as it arrives, hopefully soon. I've bought from the seller before & they packed a good tight parcel, so here's hoping!
Been looking around at old posts today it seems the fish bowl while made in England is the work of Aurora Glass as the one below is similar in so many ways it must be his work.
https://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/125095-dhumy-aurora-glass-co-fish-vase-c-188
Would have bothered me quite a bit, if this showed up damaged. Some folks should not ship!