A rare Thomas Webb and Sons engraved decanter and six glasses by James O'Fallon, circa 1870
Of globular form with a tall slender neck and plain loop handle, delicately engraved with a frog playing a harp of grasses before a butterfly and two fairies, one carrying a bird in her hands, the monogram 'IB' to the reverse, with a hollow ovoid stopper, the glasses with extremely thin stems, one with a nymph riding a bat, one with fairies picking butterflies from a basket, two with an elf playing trumpet flowers before dragonflies, and two with a fairy feeding a grasshopper, the feet with foliate borders, decanter 29.4cm high (8)
Footnotes:
John Michael (James) O'Fallon was an Irish designer and Art Director at Thomas Webb and Sons. He created a number of strange and distinctive compositions such as this, including anthropomorphic insects or classically draped women cavorting with insects, particularly favouring the use of frogs. A decanter of identical form and decorated in very similar manner was exhibited by Thomas Webb and Sons at the 1878 Paris Universal Exhibition, illustrated in the Art Journal catalogue, p.19. A jug decorated in a very similar manner by O'Fallon with a woman riding a grasshopper is illustrated by Charles Hajdamach, British Glass 1800-1914 (1991), p.173, pl.148.