Heard it through the
Grapevine A Goblet Dated 1697? We’d be gobsmacked to own this Cheers, from Ralph Finch
Mac Leod, The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Vol. 103 (1973). Up to this time this was the earliest known dated piece of Irish glass.
Selling December 8 at Gorringes auction house, located in Lewes, England, was: “A rare documentary Irish wheel engraved lead glass goblet, dated 1697, attributed to Odaccio’s Glasshouse, Dublin. The rounded funnel bowl engraved with numerous “M’’ family member initials within laurel wreaths, possibly for the Martin family, and the inscription “I : PRAY TO GOD BLESS THEM : ALL’’ above a *merese and angular inverted baluster stem, on an incomplete conical foot, 17.5 cm (6.88 inches) high, with a Victorian fitted rosewood & pewter inlaid box. It is from the Andrew Rudebeck collection.
“Interestingly, senior members of the Chichester family held the title of Earl of Donegall, Ireland and the current Parliament House in Dublin is built on the site of the former Chichester House named after Sir Arthur Chichester (1606-75). The former owners of the goblet had a box specially fitted and velvet-lined to house the glass, as the foot of the glass had been broken.” The goblet was estimated at £1,000 to £1,500, and sold for £9,500 plus a buyer’s premium ($12,566 U.S.)
“The foot is broken and large sections are lacking. A museum-style fitted perspex base has been made so that the goblet can be displayed standing up. There are visible striations to the glass bowl and some impurities in the stem. “See R.J. Charleston, English Glass and the Glass Used in England, where the author references a glass engraver, Joseph Martin living in Fleet Street, Dublin, opposite the Golden Ball, who was the only person employed at the glassworks in Fleet Street employed in the profession, and left to set up his own business in 1735. It is possible that Martin learnt the craft of engraving from a previous generation of his family who engraved the goblet in this lot with the initials of the Martin family members. The evidence that engraving on glass in Dublin preceded 1735 is a drinking glass which bears the roughly engraved inscription Lord Arch Bishop of Dublin 1715, decorated with similar laurel branches to our goblet (see The Earliest Dated Irish Drinking Glass, Dublin, 1715, Catriona
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Antique Bottle & Glass Collector
A similar small wine glass, dated 1680-90, sold by Bonhams, London, in the A.C. Hubbard Collection of Important English and Dutch Glass, Lot 2, sold for £25,000, with closely related engraving of laurel branches and lettering, inscribed “GOD SAVE THE QVEEN’’ which originated from Hall Estate, Barnstaple, Devon, the seat of the Chichester family.
“Similar stem fragments with a merese above an inverted baluster have been found in excavations at Rathfarnham Castle near Dublin dating to the late 17th Century. Colin Brain has undertaken extensive research on glass made in Dublin and has written about sixteen similar stem fragments excavated in the British Isles that share these features. He says: “Fourteen of these were found in excavations in, or near Dublin. That one of the stems was found during the excavation on the glasshouse site strengthens their identification with Odaccio. John Odaccio (Formica) was one was one of three people named in a glass patent for Ireland issued in 1675 and is thought to have operated in Dublin into the 1690s.
More about Gorringes (edited): Located at 15 North St., Lewes, UK (http://www. gorringes.co.uk) its “business began in the 1920s. Gorringes has grown and expanded in both infrastructure and reach. Gorringes has auctioned several notable lots and items, including a collection of Jane Austen artifacts sold to the Jane Austen House Museum in 2013. Gorringes has conducted 510 online auctions in its most popular departments — automobillia, books, coins, entertainment memorabilia, medals, textiles, toys, and stamps. “Among the staff, several are members of the prestigious Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors or have history working with the organization.” (Let’s see anyone on John Pastor’s staff make that claim.) Editor’s note: For those readers as uneducated as I am, the dictionary says: “Merese definition: (on a stemmed glass) a flat, sharp-edged knop joining the stem to the bowl or foot.”
