Georgian Heavy Baluster Goblet – Extremely Rare c1710

Description

Heading : Georgian heavy baluster goblet c1710
Period : Queen Anne
Origin :England
Colour : Clear with gray hue
Bowl : Conical
Stem : Blade knop collar, ball knop, and ball knop cushion.
Foot :  Folded conical
Pontil : Snapped
Glass Type : Lead
Size : 18.7cm height, 7.9cm diameter bowl, 8.6cm diameter foot
Condition : Excellent, no chips or cracks
Restoration : None
Weight: 373 grams

A glass of bright metal with a very rare knop formation. Only two similar glasses are on record, both in museums and shorter than this example. One is illustrated in ‘The Golden Age of English Glass” by Dwight P. Lannon, FSA (Antique Collectors Club Ltd 1988) at p. 113 as Item 28 with a height of 16 cm.  It is of identical formation and is almost certainly the work of the same glassmaker. Lannon lists the other known example as being in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

It would formerly have been included in Section 11 of the Barrington-Haynes’ classification simply because there is no other category available to it. It does not conform to the description of either of the glasses listed under Section XI, Subsection F in Churchill’s List in Glass Notes No. 14 of December 1954 but must certainly be regarded as of similar quality and rarity to the specialist knop forms in Sections 7-10 of the Barrington-Haynes classification by stem type.

Bickerton, however, includes glasses with a ball knop as a separate sub-section of both heavy baluster and baluster glasses between drop knops and mushrooms knops at (see Plates 95-99 at pp. 75-76 in the heavy baluster section. Plate 98 at p. 76 illustrates a dram formerly in the Hartshorne Collection with similar stem formation which he dates to 1700.   It would seem that the importance of the ball knop as a stem feature in its own right is now in the course of being recognised.