• Date: 1920 – 1937
• Place of manufacture: Sars-Poteries Associated Glassworks (Nord)
• Manufacturing technique: translucent blue blown glass
• Dimensions: H : 42,5 ; Ø : 24,7
• Collection: Coll. MusVerre
• Credit: © Beurtheret
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Originally a finial was placed at the apex of a roof to ensure its watertightness, and comprised a base, an ornament and a metal rod for fastening to the roof timbers. By the eighteenth century it had become purely a decorative object and came in many shapes and materials, including terracotta, lead, enamelled earthenware, ceramic and glass. Blown in clear or opaline glass, white, purple, orange-yellow, git or silvered, the roof finials of Sars-Poteries evoke the onion domes of the church towers in the region of Avesnes. Several weather-beaten examples continue to stand proudly on the homes in Sars-Poteries, witnesses to a time passed. Today MusVerre and the Avesnois Ecomuseum produce contemporary roof finials for the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages.
