GILT CROWNED GLOBE AND IMPRESSED UPPERCASE MARKS, SHAPE NO. 2443, SIGNED A.(LBOIN) BIRKS, DATE CYPHER OF A SWAN 1895-1900

See Joan Jones, Mintons, The First Two Hundred Years of Design & Production, Shrewsbury, 1993, p. 320, for a pair of 'Prototype vases'. It is interesting to note that the directors at Mintons chose this subject to commemorate the firm's Bicentenary and that Joan Jones selected this work as the ultimate illustration for her tome on the factory's history. For a similar example see anonymous sale Christie's, New York 10 October 2001, lot 190.