Featured Majolica bowl 19th century

I picked this up at a carboot sale for £2 about 5 years ago. I thought it might be nice planted up with bulbs if I silicone up the hole. It’s 3 and a half ins deep and 10 inches diameter.
Well, no bulbs it just got put upstairs on one of the piles and I found it again the other day and i sighed, I thought why did I buy this, it’s got a hole in it and no lid. Anyway I thought I’d do a bit more research and I think it may be a terrarium minus the glass dome. What do you think please? I can only find online one other George Skey example and a George Jones so it may be rare. Another good lesson to research your items, this was being considered by me for this years car boot stall for a tenner.
~

 

Thought it might have been Tamworth/Australia for a moment until I found these sites.
https://historyofbelgrave.weebly.com/george-skey--co.html
https://tamworthtimehikes.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/george-skey´s-wilnecote-works/
It is definitely missing a lid so could be a terrarium. If I intended to keep it I'd use it as a planter and leave the drainage hole.
Cheers
Stephen

 

I'm guessing this might be the terrarium you found?

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/12550061_409-rare-majolica-terrarium-by-george-skey

 

Yes it is SIS. It's mainly the drain hole reference which made me think mine could be a terrarium.

 

If it's right I could get another glass dome made.

 

I've got a couple of Skey planters. Not majolica, same as yours. Don't plug the hole, line with coir or moss and sit it on an old plate. They're not massively valuable, but I like them.

 

I did find this one on Pinterest but can't really find more info. Said to be Skey.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/409123947378272715/

George Skey, extremely rare Majolica Terrarium, Fern Bell. England. 1875

 

That's definitely Skey, sis.

 

Thanks for all the replies. I think it is likely to be a terrarium.
There’s a glassworks in the next county that specialises in replacement domes so I’ll see how much it will cost.

 

very cool piece Houseful, would look great with a new dome
the one in the first link SIS posted sold for $750

 

Thanks. It was a lovely surprise to see it wasn’t what I thought it was.
I’m emailing my brother tonight, he’s often quite disparaging about my bits of old ‘tat’ as he calls them.

 

Here's one of mine - the other has an underplate.

 

I would suggest waiting until you sell it. My experience is that those who consider old things to be junk will continue to see it as junk, even after you tell them what your research indicates it is worth. But once you get the cash in hand they suddenly become convinced.

 

Wow that's very nice. It appears to be the same pattern as the last bell jar above. It had occurred to me that Houseful's possibly could have been the base/saucer to a pot. Is your saucer anything like this?

 

I'll get a photo in the morning. It's basically just a flat saucer, not ornate and no hole.

 

Really Nice, Houseful!
Would it be unusual for a terrarium to have holes?

 

I tend to tell him and my friends of any thing that’s in my house that may be worth a bit of money in case there’s a personal calamity ie me getting run over or something as I would hate to think of them just cramming all my things into a skip. I sell very little, just put stuff into auction occasionally to stop me tripping over it.

 

I would have thought so INH, you would think the damp would ruin mahogany tables if they didn’t put something under it. I’ve only ever had a bottle garden.

 

I thought the purpose was to keep the moisture in, but I’m not much of a botanist. It’s quite nice, so far I have not seen one with this decoration online.

 

Here’s the George Jones one I found. Seems it has similar proportions
to mine but I don’t have any actual measurements.