Bonhams 1793 : A rare colour-twist sweetmeat glass with blue bowl and foot, circa 1760

The ribbed double-ogee blue-tinted bowl set on an opaque-twist stem consisting of a central blue spiral thread encircled by a pair of opaque-white threads, flanked by collars, above a blue-tinted domed ribbed foot with folded rim, 18.4cm high

Sold for £20,000 inc. premium

Footnotes

An almost identical example of this extremely rare colour combination is illustrated by Christopher Sheppard and John Smith, From the Restoration to the Regency (1990), p.51, fig.76 which at that time was considered to be the only known example of its type. At 19cm high it is taller than the present example but presumably the two should be considered a pair. A further colour-twist sweetmeat, with an engraved clear glass bowl and foot divided by a blue and white threaded stem, is in the Rees Price Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum and is illustrated by Joseph Bles, Rare English Glasses (1924), frontispiece.

At least three opaque-twist wine glasses with blue bowls and feet are recorded of which one is in the collection of Mr and Mrs Julius Kaplan, another in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge and one sold at Sotheby's, 18 December 2002, lot 109