Mt. Washington Glass Co. Crown Milano Vase, ca. 1893
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GUEST:
My grandfather and his three siblings were orphaned. His sister was young enough that she had to go live with family, so she went to live with her mother's first cousin in a house in Pensacola, Florida. When she died, she was the last of the family members to live in that house, and my dad and his brother inherited the house and its contents, and this was part of it.
APPRAISER:
And did your family do something else with this?
GUEST:
At some point early, I suspect in the 1900s, my mom says when electricity became popular in homes, they had it wired to be a lamp. And they did not actually drill a hole in the bottom. The wire for the electricity came out the top. But she didn't like it as a lamp, so she got rid of that, put it on the piano as a vase, and it's been mine for about 20 years.
APPRAISER:
If they had actually drilled the bottom of this, or if there had been damage done from making it into a lamp, you and I wouldn't even be having this conversation.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
What do you think it's made out of?
GUEST:
Well, we thought it was porcelain, and the gentleman at the very beginning of the day said, "No, that's glass. Here's your ticket."
APPRAISER:
Okay.
GUEST:
So the truth is I have absolutely no clue of anything.
APPRAISER:
Well, the interesting part about this is that this was made to look like Royal Worcester porcelain.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
And this was made by the Mt. Washington Glass Company. And at this point they were located in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
And when it was first introduced in 1886, it was called Albertine. And it was supposed to compete with Royal Worcester, so this is made out of white opal glass, but they put a satin finish on it to make it look like porcelain. So it would easily be mistaken.
GUEST:
Be mistaken.
APPRAISER:
You didn't find any mark that said "Albertine" on it, did you?
GUEST:
No.
APPRAISER:
Okay, what you did find was the mark down here, which is a monogram with a crown over it. The monogram is "CM" for Crown Milano. The Mt. Washington Glass Company filed the papers in January, late January 1893 to change the name from Albertine to Crown Milano. So we know when they started marking it like this, it has to be from 1893 on. So the way it is decorated, it's an enamel decoration. A stencil was used, so you have the rich enamel in the foreground depicting the boats and the sails, and then a very faint gray paint or enamel in the background depicting Venice. And then to enhance it, you have the raised gilded design sort of framing it in these little vignettes. In a retail shop, it would bring between $2,000 and $3,000.
GUEST:
Wonderful. I'm not going to sell it. It's going to go back in my cabinet.
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