Engraved Short Wine Glass c1790

Description

Heading : Engraved Short Wine Glass c1790
Period : George III
Origin : England 
Colour : Clear 
Bowl : Round funnel engraved with an OXO band above urns and parrerae with swags of husks
Stem : Hexagonal facet cut
Foot : Conical
Pontil : Snapped
Glass Type : Lead 
Size :  11.1cm height.  5.0cm diameter bowl. 6.3cm diameter foot 
Condition : Excellent. no chips or cracks 
Restoration : None 
Weight:  grams 

We regularly see wholly unsupported claims that this style of engraving can be attributed to James Giles and has some Jacobite significance. This was not engraved at the James Giles atelier. It bears nothing more than a passing resemblance to the bucrania et patterae design despite the unfounded protestations  .

Firstly this glass was manufactured at too late a date. precisely after 1776 when the Giles atelier closed for good. Secondly an urn is simply a decorative schema. it is not a metaphor nor substitute for a skull.

The same decorative theme. urns and wheels is to be found on Sevres porcelain. Meissen. Minton and Doccia porcelain from the 18th and 19th century. The exact same design appears in two international catalogues of decorative concepts produced for glass engravers and decorators for porcelain and has absolutely no Jacobite significance. The ox skulls with festoons or garlands and paterae ( in the Giles 1774 catalogue they are described as stags heads) are to be found on the capitals of Doric columns from the 5th century BC. just 2200 years before Jacobitism became an issue.

It is widely accepted in the field of porcelain that the urns with swags of husks would be an anomaly for Giles. Sandon assigns such decoration to the Flight period at Worcester 1783 to 1792 . Giles died in 1780. When Giles did use urns in decoration they were not connected. a garland would simply traverse the urn.

Finally this is neither gilded nor enamelled. it is engraved. Giles it is not

Caveat emptor as they say.