Laugharne is best known as the town where Dylan Thomas wrote in a shed above the estuary, but by the 1980’s it was also producing cobalt glass wrapped in sterling silver. This pair from the Laugharne Glass workshop, a trumpet vase and a perfume bottle with its original stopper, is hand blown in deep transparent blue and overlaid with silver engraved with wild rose branches and leaves.
Silver overlay on glass had its heyday around 1900, and Laugharne Glass revived it with heavier metal than most. The workshop’s own literature claimed its overlay was thicker and better made than much nineteenth-century work, which is a confident thing to print in your own brochure. The workshop made its pieces in fairly small numbers and closed around 2010, so matched sets turn up less often than single pieces. The bottle keeps its cobalt ball stopper with matching silver decoration, and the vase still has its paper label reading “Hand Made by Laugharne Glass”, along with the workshop’s old telephone number.
Together they suit a dressing table or a windowsill, where light comes through the blue between the silver.
Condition notes
Excellent vintage condition with no chips, cracks or repairs to either piece. The sterling silver overlay is complete and firmly attached throughout.
