Basket best gift wedding

Tisket, tasket, a bride's gift basket

Q. This glass bowl (photo enclosed) is 12 inches in diameter and 31/2 inches high. It is in perfect condition and is not marked by the maker. I have looked in many antiques reference books and failed to find anything remotely like it. Can you help? Thank you.

A. We certainly can. First of all, this is a bride's bowl or bride's basket that was designed to sit in a metal frame (usually silver plated) and be used as a centerpiece on a dining table or to decorate the center of a sideboard. In other words, without the frame, this lovely bowl is incomplete.

These bride's baskets were very popular wedding gifts during the late 19th century. The moderately prosperous brides of the day were sure to get at least one, just as the brides of today are sure to get at least one (and probably more) of the ubiquitous gift certificates or envelopes of cash. In the days before this lack of imagination set in, gifts to prospective brides were more carefully selected and were often luxury objects for the dining room such as linens, cut glass, silver plated items and, yes, bride's baskets.

This is a very nice example of an art glass bowl that was made in Bohemia (the modern-day Czech Republic) while it was still part of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

The piece in today's question is a middle-range product from one of these Bohemian makers. It is hand-blown and hand-enameled, but the decoration is not as richly done or as elaborate as it might have been had it had been made by one of the best Bohemian concerns of the day, such as the one founded by Ludwig Moser in 1895 in the town of Karlsbad (or Carlsbad).

This company is famous for its elaborate gilding in conjunction with heavy enameled decorations in the Art Nouveau manner. To be sure, the enameling of water lilies on your basket is in the Art Nouveau manner, but it is not as intricately done as we would expect to see on a Moser piece.

This leads us to believe that this piece was made by some company other than Moser and that it would be impossible to make an attribution as to who the actual maker might have been. Despite this frustrating circumstance, this bowl is very lovely and the glass itself is far above average.

The speckled red color is highly desirable and was probably achieved by rolling the hot glass on a slab called a "Marver" that had shards of red glass on it. The hot glass picked up the red shards, and as the piece was worked and expanded the red chunks were incorporated into the glass and resulted in a sort of tortoiseshell effect that is most attractive.

The sapphire blue ruffled rim is also very attractive, but the value of this piece is held down by the absence of its original holder. At the present time, the insurance replacement value of this bowl is between $350 and $450.

Send questions to: Treasures in Your Attic, P.O. Box 12208, Knoxville, Tenn. 37912-0208.

Scripps Howard News Service