This bowl bears expensive fruit

QMy husband and I acquired this beautiful glass bowl. The glass is very unusual because it seems to glow in certain lights and the colours shade on the outside. The gold flowers and vines are repeated around the circumference. The widest measurement is 24 centimetres and it is 12 cm high (4.75 inches). We’ve been told it would have been in some sort of a holder. Can you put a name to it along with some history and value? — Sandy, Kitchener

AThis is a wonderful example of what’s commonly called a bride’s bowl — many were gifted on wedding days. And yes, it was in a silver-plated stand. Big companies such as the Toronto Silver Plate Company in their 1880s catalogues advertised these as fruit bowls on pedestal and basket style frames. The glass, likely made by the Thomas Webb’s English glass company, was described as having a ‘Mother of Pearl Finish’ — a type of cased glass. Your bowl has four layers — pink, clear, white and blue. There is a ‘diamond-quilted air-trap’ design moulded between the outer layers. The outside is satinized, giving the illusion of a pearl finish. The blue inner layer is rare. To boot, the body is a melon form and the top edge is handfluted. The enamel ‘gilds the lily.’ Originally they were offered wholesale for $22.50 — a significant sum at a time when a 58-hour work week earned $6.50 for a first class artisan. As it is, it is worth $600. With a suitable frame it will command $1,500.