Posted 4 years ago
IronLace
(878 items)
This Victorian art glass vase by John Walsh Walsh has been on my wish list for many years...I've managed to find two others previously, but the pink specimen eluded me...until now!
Such was my delight on spotting it that I broke my rule about buying local...yes, this was one of my few international buys this year, & I was pleasantly surprised by how fast it arrived...in less than a month from the USA. That's almost "normal"! Especially since Australia is cut off from the rest of the world, & hardly any international flights are arriving. Anyway, I am most thankful for small mercies...& extremely thankful to receive this superb example of Victorian eccentricity!
The vase is made from three layers of cased glass - clear over bright pink, with an opaline interior. It measures 15.5 cm tall, 3.5 cm across the top rim, & 8 cm across the base. The trunk of the palm tree is covered in rustic thorn pull - out decoration, the top rim is adorned with six clear applied "fronds" that droop downwards, & the base is encircled with upward facing clear applied foliage.
There is a rough snapped off pontil mark on the base.
Last image shows it with two other palm tree vases by JWW.
For some reason, I think if I was a piece of glass, I'd be one of these vases...the pink one especially. Not that I wear pink, but perhaps because I'm proudly, defiantly whimsical & perhaps not to all tastes...
Just beautiful, congratulation..
Thanks so much, Penny!
It looks just as good upside-down.
Many thanks, Bambus1920! That's the goal, LOL...
I wouldn't have picked the pink for you but yep, style, presence, complexity, and a subtle bit of weird might describe you very well!
Glad you finally got a wish piece IL!
Thanks so much, Karen!
Well, I'm not a pink person for fashion, but definitely for glass (though my collection gladly embraces every colour of the rainbow). The other thing about this piece that makes it especially significant is that in 2017 I wrote a story (that also helped change my life, strange as it may seem) & there was a scene in it that involved one of these vases. Yes, really that's how much it meant to me!
So, as to this vase...it's eccentric, flamboyant, oddball, funny, fanciful. It makes me smile. I think, like all real art, it speaks through the years of pleasure & joy, defiant against the looming sorrows of life. It is the spirit of fun & fantasy embodied in a frozen moment.