A heavy baluster goblet, circa 1710-20, and an exceptionally rare cover, circa 1700-10
The generous round funnel bowl with a solid base, resting on a half knop above a wide teared inverted baluster and teared basal knop, over a folded conical foot, the domed cover moulded with gadroons to the top, surmounted by a hollow finial finely moulded in the form of the head of a woman wearing a bonnet with pincered detailing, resting on a wavy collar, 32.5cm high (2)
Footnotes:
Provenance
Private British Collection

The remarkable cover on this goblet is paralleled only by a coin goblet in the Museum of London (inv. no.34.139/14) illustrated by both John Hayes, The Garton Collection of English Table Glass (1965), p.24, no.13 and Francis Buckley, A History of Old English Glass (1925), pl.VII. That finial is modelled as the head of a gentleman wearing a tricorn hat, surmounting a hollow knop containing a coin dated 1708 with the stem of the goblet containing a further coin dated 1714. Related finials in the form of both male and female heads, most wearing tricorn hats and some occasionally with coronets in coloured glass, were used on a rare and distinctive type of conical feeder or fountain made for caged birds discussed and illustrated in detail by Nöel Hume, 'Ornamental glass bird fountains of the eighteenth century', Antiques, Vol.90, No.2 (August 1966), pp.208-10. An example with a male head is illustrated by W A Thorpe, A History of English and Irish Glass (1929), pl.LXXXII. A London advertisement of 1706 in the Post Man mentions 'Cristol Bird Glasses' and a number of fragments have been excavated in London, suggesting that these finials were made in London early on in 18th century. Scholars have attempted to attribute the male heads to popular heroes including the Duke of Marlborough or Prince Eugene, but it seems unlikely that they were intended to represent anyone specific.