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Fireworks: A fine stipple-engraved goblet by Laurence Whistler, dated 1955 image 1

Fireworks: A fine stipple-engraved goblet by Laurence Whistler, dated 1955 image 2

Lot 128^*,AR

Fireworks: A fine stipple-engraved goblet by Laurence Whistler, dated 1955

27 November 2024, 10:30 GMT

London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £2,560 inc. premium

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Fireworks: A fine stipple-engraved goblet by Laurence Whistler, dated 1955

The shape designed by the artist, of geometrical 'Tulip' shape with a generous tapering bucket bowl, finely decorated with a fantastic firework display above the water, the silhouette of a crowd of people in the foreground, flanked by figural statues on pedestals, signed 'LW 1955' lower-right, on an angular inverted baluster stem, the conical foot inscribed with two verses from a poem, 22.9cm high

Footnotes

Provenance
Presented by Sir Geoffrey Faber to his wife Enid on their 35th wedding anniversary
Dr Thomas Earle Faber Collection, Bonhams, 20 September 2005, lot 648
Graham Vivian Collection, October 2018
Stephen Pohlmann Collection

Literature
Lawrence Whistler, Engraved Glass 1952-58 (1959), p.27 and pls.48-50
Lawrence Whistler, The Image on the Glass (1975), p.153, no.154

The artist described the piece this... 'The subject is a firework display among trees across a lake. Rockets, shells, fountains, mines and catherine wheels are exploding in front of a crowd on the near side, whose heads are seen silhouetted by the water, between sculptured rapes on pedestals. Below, on the foot, are the first two verses of a poem by myself, beginning with a list of pyrotechnical names'. The two verses in the foot are from a poem by the engraver titled 'A Celebration', published by Laurence Whistler, The View from This Window (1956):

Golden and Silver Rains and Falls and Fountains,
Brilliant Suns and Stars and Huge Revolving Suns,
Rainbow Candles, Rainbow Wheels and Showers,
Glittering Cascades, Glorias and Brilliant Yew Trees.

Extravagant their names, unearthly the landskip they furnish,
Where the stars thicken to sunrise, where the suns rise
Plural and bearded, whole oaks come to stature in a moment,
And the twelve-second cherry undress in a hood of bright rain.

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