Northwood Spiral Rib aka Spiral, Spines & Ribs White Vase Whimsey

This odd little white vase was photographed by David Doty during the preview of a Seeck auction in 1996. It was sold to Gary Lickver for the highest bid of $1500. David Doty named it "Spiral Rib" and displayed it on his website that day when he got home.

Here's the thing. During this auction, Jim Seeck told the crowd that the buyer of this "only one reported" Northwood vase would have the privilege of naming it. Gary chose the name "Spiral, Spines & Ribs". They are both good names. After I purchased it from Gary, I decided to keep David Doty's name because it was established and published for quite a few years now on his website. 

Before Gary sold it to me he displayed it in the 2015 HOACGA seminar among other items that were rare or whimsical that day. It was the same day I bought the Giant Pagoda vase from him which was also in that display.

It stands 8" tall at its lowest point and 8 1/4" at its highest so I think it was slightly swung or stretched. The opening is 3" wide and has nine flutes around. It is marked from the inside on the bottom with the Northwood N. The foot is dome-shaped and has the  thin, tight spirals extending uninterrupted all the way down to the bottom. In other words, the dome foot is part of the original mould and not applied separately.

This spiral pattern was created with a 3-part mould but you would never know it unless you looked very closely. The only trace of mould lines were those found at the bottom of each cascade of scalloped ribs that were an eighth inch long. It is my theory that after the vase came out of the mould, the spirals in one seam did not match up just right and did not look fluid. The workman may have thought it was unacceptable or distracting so he attempted to change the look by hand-applying a cascade of scallops down all three mould lines to hide them and separate the sections creating three separate panels. 

Then the whole thing was iridized, showing pastel shades of blues and pinks with hints of green, gold and yellow. It's frosty, almost opalescent, especially towards the bottom. The flutes are perfectly clear and show lots of color because they were iridized inside a bit as well. 

Although the vase looked good after it was finished, it probably still looked odd, especially after all the manipulation, not to mention it would be too time consuming for them to hand-apply the vertical scallop ribs for mass production. I think perhaps this prototype was a new pattern, a new idea, that just did not fly.

The Christina Katsikas Collection