Classic Design: Furniture, Silver & Ceramics

Classic Design: Furniture, Silver & Ceramics

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 185. An English Cameo Glass Lamp Base, attributed to Thomas Webb & Sons, Circa 1889, probably designed by George Woodall.

Property of an Important West Coast Collection

An English Cameo Glass Lamp Base, attributed to Thomas Webb & Sons, Circa 1889, probably designed by George Woodall

Lot Closed

October 17, 07:03 PM GMT

Estimate

20,000 - 30,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

An English Cameo Glass Lamp Base, attributed to Thomas Webb & Sons, Circa 1889, probably designed by George Woodall


of bottle-shape, the turquoise glass wall overlaid in opaque pink and white, the neck finely wheel-engraved with chevron and key-pattern banding, the body deeply cut in the Chinoiserie taste with scrolling peony blossoms and large lotus blossoms above stylized anthemion and a circular foot


height 18 1/4 in., 46.4 cm

A carved bottle-shaped lamp base of this form and dimensions is illustrated in David Whitehouse, English Cameo Glass in The Corning Museum, Corning, 1994, pp. 52-53, fig. 48, Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Leonard S. Rakow, acc. no. 82.2.16. The author reproduces a photograph of glass in Thomas Goode & Co.'s London showroom of about 1891, showing the lamp base, or one very similar to it, to the side of 'The Great Tazza', both of which were exhibited at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1889. The photograph also shows a second lamp base flanking the tazza, of near identical design to the present lot with only slight differences in the ornamentation.


Other noteworthy examples of this scale in rare pink and white carving over blue glass include:

a bottle vase in the Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire, Gift of Priscilla and Albert C. Murray, acc. no. 1974.33.6;

a bottle vase in the Royal Ontario Museum, Ontario, acc. no. 928.18.17;

and a third bottle vase illustrated in C. Woodall Perry, The Cameo Glass of Thomas & George Woodall, 2000, p. 50.