Does Anyone Recognize This Smokey Colored Glass Bowl w Tubing Around Base?

Hi,

I have no clue about this piece.  It is a fairly large smokey amber/gray glass centrepiece bowl with a footed base.  There is off-white "tubing" wrapped around the base.  The underside has an acid finished pontil mark, so I don't know if this may be a more recent piece.  Any ideas?

Ron

Reminds me of a couple of beatifully made bowls I have here, by Neil Wilkin.

Some examples here (my two at end): http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,37646.0.html

Follow the links in the thread for more of his work.

John

Hi John,

Yes, it is similar. Does the pontil mark look right to you? I'll try to find more examples of Wilkin's work and see if I might find this color.

Thanks for the help!

Ron

The white bowl has a snapped pontil mark, much like yours but left alone. Has the mark on yours been ground down - perhaps to allow the bowl to sit flat?

No, it just has a whitish grainy texture to it - I always thought that a texture like that was caused by acid being used to finish off a mark.  Is that right?

Ron

Never heard of using acid on a pontil mark, if they wanted to smooth off any sharp edges I would expect it to have been ground. Much simpler than faffing around with corrosive chemicals.

Someone told me this a number of years ago and I just accepted it without question as the person was quite knowledgeable. Perhaps I just misunderstood, wouldn't be the first time LOL.

Thanks again!

Grinding can leave it with a grainy texture and looking whitish, if left unpolished.

There are plenty of acid etched makers marks, just cant think of any examples where pontil marks have been treated like that.