Victorian Bristol Glass Vase ~ Lily of the Valley

                                                                                                                                              Lily of the Valley is my birth-flower and I've always loved the delicate fragrant blossoms, draping gracefully from amongst the wide tapering leaves.  They don't really grow down here in the Sunshine State, so I have a collection of items adorned with their image - silver, china, jewelry, and several vases including this Victorian era decorated glass piece, a type usually called Bristol glass.  The earlier, 18th century enamel decorated glass made in Bristol, England was of a much finer quality than most of these fairly common mid to late 19th century glassware pieces, frequently found with nature-inspired designs, and they're usually not even British, but more often produced in Bohemia (Czechoslovakia), other European countries, or the U.S.  This 7¼" tall vase, mold-blown white glass, with a rough pontil mark, has hand painted enamel leaves on a warm beige background, the blossoms were masked off (as in watercolor painting), leaving them depicted in the crisp white of the glass base, faint thin gold lines circle the rim and base.

Here's a slide-show from Country Living magazine on Victorian Bristol Glass, and an article from the Antiques Digest of the Old and Sold website on Bristol Glass.