Message #50229

[forestman]

Dear Joey,

I was just trying to say that bottles have been embellished without heat used to stick the pieces to the bottles as with the Tsuda bottles etc. So IF Rube's bottle was embellished/appliqued it could have been done with some form of glue and not heat.

I have looked at Rube's bottle in detail a number of times now and the feeling I have hasn't changed, it's all a bit squared off to be old. The junctions between base and overlay look too sharp to me, there should be a slight curving right at the junction and there doesn't seem to be. The fish doesn't look animated enough and the angles of the surface carving to the side carving of the overlay are too sharp as well, there is no real rounding off of the surface carving and no real sense of a final polishing having been given after the carving was done.

My feeling is mid 20th Century onwards from the pictures we've seen. The problem is that by far the best way to judge a bottle is when you have it in your hand as just turning a bottle so the light plays on it at a different angle can reveal aspects you would never see in a picture.

Regards, Adrian.