Posted 12 months ago
glassiegirl
(95 items)
This is a rare English art glass example from White House Glassworks, during the tenure of Arthur Nash. The ivory decor is called Worcester Ivory and was produced in 1883 to imitate Worcester porcelain. The glass will glow neon green under a UV light. Mould blown shape is a tapered bulbous form with two hand tooled, elephant heads on each side of the vase. Large polished pontil on the low footed base. The hand painted enameling depicts a chrysanthemum flower drenched in gold gilt.
6" tall. The rim is 2-3/8" diameter. Handle to handle is 2-3/4" across. The low footed base is 2-7/8" diameter. The bulbous part of the vase is 3" wide, at best.
Who is Arthur J. Nash? He was the superintendent of Tiffany's glasshouse, Arthur Nash oversaw all aspects of Tiffany's sheet glass and blown glass production. Born in England and trained as a chemist, Nash worked at leading British glasshouses before immigrating with his family to America in 1892. He supervised the construction of Tiffany's Corona glasshouse the following year. Nash was instrumental in Tiffany's success. He developed inventive glass formulas to yield the spectacular colors and artistic effects Tiffany desired. His contributions to Tiffany's decorative glass and lighting were recognized with three silver medals at the Paris Exposition in 1900. Nash's sons, A. Douglas Nash and Leslie H. Nash, also worked for Tiffany and held important managerial positions.
The glass elephant handles are just priceless and the gold decoration on the chrysanthemum flower appears just like new. What a prime example of this artists work we see. The opposite back side of the vase is equally as appealing as the front is !~
That's a very nice piece of White House glass!!
BTW Arthur J. Nash was the brains behind Tiffany glass. Louis C. Tiffany never blew a piece of glass in his life, all of the glass formulas and iridescent glass were developed by A. Nash. I was fortunate enough to be able to look at his note books/formula books at CMOG as well as get a personal tour of the collection he donated to Cornell University. He was a pretty amazing person in my opinion.
Thank you, Phil and Brian for the wonderful compliments on this vase.
This is probably one of the best examples I've ever acquired. I've seen another example with the applied elephant busts and there was a single ruby glass bead to be found in each eye.
Thanks. Brian for sharing more info. on A. Nash. I'm sure your experience at Corning was amazing. Neat to know!
I could not see the elephants until I saw the side- view, then I actually gasped out loud.
What wonderful piece of artwork!
A Masterpiece IMO!