FIGURE 9
A small glass bottle in wine-bottle style but probably intended for oil or vinegar, and fashioned from a pale-green metal comparable to that used for pharmaceutical phials and flasks. The base has a pronounced conical kick, but is not appreciably thicker than the walls of the body. The mouth is slightly everted over a V-sectioned string rim. On the yardstick of wine-bottle evolution such a bottle is unlikely to have been manufactured prior to 1680 or later than about 1720. E5. (See also fig. 15, no. 19.)
FIGURES 10 and 11
Stem and foot fragment from an elaborate drinking glass or candlestick, English lead metal of splendid quality. The solid stem is formed from two quatrefoil balusters between which is a melon knop with mereses above and below. The stem terminates in two mereses of increasing size and is attached to an elaborately gadrooned foot, only part of which survives. Any suggestion that the foot is actually part of the base of the bowl is negated by the presence of a rough pontil scar inside it, as well as by the fact that the surviving fragment spreads out at so shallow an angle that no other construction is possible.
Figure 10.—An elaborate stem of English glass, London, about 1685-1695.
The stem form is most closely paralleled by two goblets illustrated in W. A. Thorpe's History of English and Irish Glass,[38] one of which contains within its stem an English fourpenny piece of 1680. Because no known goblet exhibits the high, gadrooned foot of the Clay Bank example, it has been suggested that the stem may be that of a candlestick.[39] While this is certainly a reasonable supposition, it must be added that neither have examples of candlesticks been found in this form. (For conjectural reconstruction see fig. 11.) Although it is extremely unfortunate that no upper fragments were found, there is no doubt as to the date of the surviving section, nor is there any denying that it is on a par with the best English glass of its period. London, about 1685-1695. Height of fragment 5¼ inches. E4.
Figure 11.—The Clay Bank stem reconstructed as both a drinking glass and a candlestick. Height of fragment is 5¼ inches. About 1685-1695.