442/RL-111

This is an English Thomas Webb art glass centerpiece bowl or vase, pink over ivory glass, applied stylized dolphin fish at both ends and supported by two additional stub feet. The age is 19th century, circa 1882.

The bowl is 10 1/4" long, 6" wide and 5 5/8" high to the top of a fish head. Note that the bowl is oval, longer than it is wide, which gives it an interesting shape.

The bottom has a clear glass applied berry prunt, which is a characteristic of Thomas Webb glass. Around the prunt, the pontil is ground and polished even with the bottom, and the shading is lighter, showing as a light colored circle around the prunt, another characteristic of Webb glass.

The inside layer of glass is ivory at the top and shades to a darker yellow inside the bowl. If you look down inside the bowl, you can see the berry prunt through the bottom. I provided a close up photo so that you may see what I am attempting to describe.

The outside glass is pink, with subtle shadings from pale pink to a darker dusky pink. Around the top is an applied clear glass ribbed shell trail. There is one fish at each end, with open mouths, upper fins attached to the end of the bowl, and the outer side with points. At the bottom of the fish there are shell-like fins, which are the two end feet for the bowl.

The rim is polished.

The base of the fish, the feet, there are chips and nicks that make the glass rough to the touch. I show photos of both sides of both fish feet. The prunt feels a tiny bit rough to the fingers, so there may be a nick if examined with a magnifying glass. One point on one fish feels rough to the fingers, so there may be a nick that shows under a magnifying glass. There are a few air bubbles. There are dark flecks of what I think is ash under the clear glass around the rim.

You can view similar bowls with fish ends, though smaller and of different glass and shapes, in the book "Victorian Decorative Glass British Designs, 1850-1914" by Mervyn Gulliver on pages 170 to 172. John Walsh Walsh, another Stourbridge glass maker, made similar glass pieces with fish ends and applied prunts during this same time period.