Northwood Pulled Husk Corn Vase Purple Rose Bowl Shape With Extended Husks Whimsey

I purchased this Northwood Pulled Corn Husk vase at the 2017 ACGA (American Carnival Glass Association) convention auction featuring the glass of the late Karen Engel of Albany, Oregon. It was hosted by auctioneer Jim Wroda at his old facility in Greenville, Ohio just before he moved to Westfield, New York in late 2017.

This particular example was one of four such vases offered at Karen's auction, with no two exactly alike. there were three purple and one green one sold that day. These are the only two colors known in this pattern.

This purple one has an opening that has been cupped in, commonly referred to as a rose bowl shape. It stands seven inches tall and has some good weight. This is the only known Pulled Husk vase that has husks that have been attached and then flipped out going away from the vase, as if they had become handles, instead of laying flat against the corn kernels, standard for all other vases known.

In the July 1994 Lincoln-Land article in Vol. XVIV No. 4, there is an article written about this vase that says it had surfaced in the San Francisco, California area where it had been found in an antique shop "by a couple of new collectors who were not sure of what they had found or how much to pay for it." It was on display at the Northern California Carnival Glass Convention in Modesto, California in June of 1994. Perhaps the "couple of new collectors" mentioned in the article were the late George Thomas and the late Dale Matheny of Belmont, California. In any case, George Thomas, vase collector extraordinaire, did own it and Karen Engel, close friend and also a member of the same club, acquired his vase after he passed away. 

Here are all the examples sold at the Engel Auction.

 Purple Rose Bowl                   Purple Straight Up 

Purple Flared or Chalice Shape               Green Swung                

And now a word on how it was made... I have finally come to a solid conclusion of how this vase was assembled. The three protruding husks are an integral part of the mould. The area going up the cob where all three "look attached", before they protrude, measures exactly  2 3/4" long on each one. Then, in following the mould line up the foot, I found it to go up the edge of the husk, completely around it and then continue up the corn kernels. The three husks, without a doubt,  were a part of the 3-part mould.

It is no wonder why so few of these were made. It must have been very difficult to remove these vases from their mould. I believe the many different shapes that were made were all experimental pieces and definitely can be called whimsies. This vase never really made "line item" status. They tried using green glass as the base color in the couple known examples, probably to see if it would look good since corn is naturally green. Like my friend David Richards told me, much work went into this vase an it is a shame to have not produced more of these whimsical vases.

Tom Mordini featured this exquisite vase on the cover of his 28th Edition of Carnival Glass Auction Prices 2012 to 2013 as shown in the last photo.

Auction catalog photos courtesy Jim Wroda Auctions.

Group photos sent to me by my friend, the late Karen Engel.

The Christina Katsikas Collection