A very rare Beilby enamelled light baluster wine glass, circa 1765-70
The round funnel bowl finely painted in white enamel with a meandering border of fruiting vine below the rim, traces of gilding to the rim edge, on a tall multi-knopped stem with an angular knop over an annular knop, beaded inverted baluster and small basal knop, over a conical foot, 18.3cm high
Footnotes:
Provenance
Darell Thompson-Schwab Collection

Once known as 'Newcastle' balusters, glasses of this distinctive form are now known to have been manufactured in Holland as well as England. It is possible that the Beilbys imported undecorated light baluster glasses from Holland, as most surviving examples of this shape with Beilby decoration have identical stems. The Beilbys will have been aware that the best glass engravers working in Holland, such as Jacob Sang, favoured the light baluster shape for their most prestigious commissions.

Fifteen Beilby decorated wine glasses or goblets of similar shape are recorded, including the present lot. Three others are recorded with vine decoration, including one in the Fitzwilliam Museum (inv. no.C.513-1961), one in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. no.c.625/1936) and one in the Kunstmuseum Den Haag (inv. no.1005203), the former two illustrated by James Rush, The Ingenious Beilbys (1973), pp.52 and 57, nos.28 and 33b. The remaining eleven all bear armorials or crests, of which eight have Dutch connections. An important polychrome armorial light baluster wine glass of identical size and form to the present lot was sold by Bonhams on 1 December 2021, lot 142 where a summary of the known armorial examples is detailed in the footnote.