Glass Circle News_No.113, Dec 2007

No. 113

2
O
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www.glasscircle.org
[email protected]

andy@decanterman com
EDITORS

Dr. David Watts (Hon. Vice President),
27 Raydean Road, Barnet,
ENS
IAN.

Andy McConnell,
Glass Etc. 18-22 Rope Walk,

Rye, East Sussex, TN31 7NA.

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i5tin
ag

14$
reeting5

from

GLASS CIRCLE NEWS

Congratulations

OU
Years of a Royal Marriage

around 1940 might bring as much as $16,750. The one here, chosen for its pretty
picture, cost your editor $12.

US officials presented two other Steuben royal wedding presents. In England,
a

superb gift was a goblet, diamond point engraving by Laurence Whistler with a verse
composed by Thomas Campion for the marriage of Princess Elizabeth, daughter of

James I, in 1613, given by Mr. Mark Bonham-Carter. Pictures of this glass and 95 other wedding presents can be

seen on www.royalcollection.org.uk/microsites/royalwedding1947/objectasp?grouping=&exhibs

The original of this bowl, a copy of which is currently
on show in the Glassmarket of The Corning Museum

of Glass, was the first Steuben work chosen as a gift of

State by the US. It was presented to Princess Elizabeth

and Prince Philip on their wedding in November 1947
by President and Mrs. Truman. It started a tradition

that has continued with their Presidents ever since.
In May this year the Queen made an official visit to the
US. One fulfilment for her was a long held desire to

see was the Kentucky Derby. A souvenir tumbler is
produced for each race. The one here, badged in

polychrome enamel is for the 1985 Derby, The back of

the tumbler lists all 110 winners since the Derby was

founded in 1785. We hope the Queen was presented

with one for the 2007

race. If not, her majesty
can indulge herself on

Ebay for $1 + $9,99

postage. However, The

winning horse will not

be listed until the 2008

glass is available.
From a collector’s

viewpoint we are told

by the 2004-2005 issue
of the
Kentucky Derby

Glasses Price Guide

that a glass dated to

also in this issue …
Sebastien Zoude catalogue unsafe, page 3.
Report on our AGM, page 7.
Press-moulded Art Deco, page 8.

Notes on the Importance of Gullet (New Series),

Glass Sellers Prize results, page 13

and all our usual articles, reviews and notices.
and …

on
our GC News web site.

The Contemporary Glass Society
10th Anniversary Exhibition.

Pictures from the Glass Sellers

page 10.

prize.

Art of Light, exhibition pictures.

Colour images from our articles.

GLASS CIRCLE NEWS No. 113, 2007

Editorial

When is a Fake not a Fake?
This question arises from the article opposite. The answer
lies in the definition of fake. Was the item under

consideration deliberately intended to deceive or was it

originally made for some quite different and innocent
purpose? If the intention to deceive was deliberate then our

language is endowed with ample unambiguous terms of

which
counterfeit
and

forgery
are perhaps the best. Our

dictionaries allow
fake
to convey the idea of intent so it is a

word to be used with caution.

Back in 1954 Royal Brierley Crystal introduced a suite of
glasses they called
Edinburgh: a Revival of Historic

Drinking Glasses.
They would not deceive me today but, as

a beginner, I fell for one, that I thought at the time was an

18th century bargain. I keep it today as a reminder about the

dangers of dabbling in an area of collecting outside one’s

specific knowledge.

The Sebastien Zoude catalogue discussed opposite proved
particularly difficult to interpret. Looking at photocopies of

the pages aroused suspicion but nothing concrete. But once

the original was to hand for study its shortcomings were
soon apparent. It was clearly not a catalogue, there was no

text on which a date could be based while other features
indicated that it could certainly not have been intended as a

submission for a royal grant in 1762/3.

On the other hand, the ink-drawn catalogue was clearly not

the work of an expert forger as its poor quality became
apparent after even a brief examination. As a test of the

little grey cells it was hardly a starter. The real challenge

that faced Hugh Tait and myself was to understand the
enigma of how it came into being in the first place and its

purpose for doing so.
The Zoude catalogue (initially it was not clear to me that

there were two versions) is first known in the collection of

Belgian author and historian, Raymond Chambon. Where it

came from is unknown. If its shortcomings were so obvious

why did he promote it as genuine? Why were reputable
authorities allowed to accept his dating of 1762 and the
drawings to indicate glassware as actually originating from

the Zoude furnaces? Why did he present it as genuine in his

otherwise well-researched book on Belgian glass?

The only solution I have been able to find that answers all

these problems is that Chambon relied upon his provider as
an unimpeachable authority and that a small number of
pictures in the catalogue were backed up by actual items in

the donor’s collection. If that interpretation is accepted then

the original owner of the catalogue can only have been a
noted Belgian collector, Armand Baar. Upon reflection,

and it worries me still, I find it difficult to forgive Chambon
for allowing his misrepresentation of the date to persist and

deceive both the collector and the curator/historian.

Who made the catalogues in the first place? I do not accept

the idea of a deliberate forgery. It could have been Baar but
it does not relate directly to what we know about his

collection. It could have been a member of the later Zoude
family, as I favour, or an unknown intermediary buyer.

Corning’s Rakow Library may, on occasions, be criticised
for its blotting paper approach to building up its holding.

But by holding in one place the entire Chambon collection,

including other Zoude family documents, the investigation

was made much easier for me. Further, its generous support
both in sending copy material overseas at no or minimum

charge and readily making originals available for study in

the library itself is a practice to be commended to libraries

and holders of other collections everywhere.

Art of Light — German Renaissance Stained Glass
At the National Gallery, London. Until February 17th, ’08

This modest exhibition explores whether the best stained

glass from the late Renaissance period fully reflected – and

even rivalled – the latest developments in painting, while
exploiting to the full the vibrant properties of light.

Examples of le century German stained glass from the

Victoria and Albert Museum are juxtaposed alongside

carefully selected paintings in the National Gallery of the

same period, and from the same regions of Germany.
Sketches and drawings help support the analyses of the
chosen pieces. Accompanying texts are particularly

informative. A full colour booklet is available for £4.50.

German stained glass of this period made use of the same
imagery as painting and showed similar visual innovations.

See more pictures in colour on
Increasingly, the designers of stained glass windows were

also painters of panel pictures. There is a special focus on

three important early sixteenth century artists who designed
for stained glass as well as creating paintings: Albrecht

Diirer, Hans Baldung Grien and Iorg Breu. The concluding

highlight is a full-scale recreation of one of the
extraordinary multi-scened glass panels from the Abbey of

Mariawald. This work is considered to be one of the

greatest achievements of the glass painters of the early
sixteenth century. The panels reveal the full range of the art

of this period, including well-executed landscapes.

A 4-minute video outlines how stained glass is made while

a small section of the exhibition depicts materials relating to
both painting and stained glass in this period. Similar
pigments were often used while the different techniques are

compared. Stained glass is said to
approach the painter’s

art, becoming ever more painterly and sophisticated.
By

highlighting the beauty and importance of both glass and
painting this exhibition will (should) help
open eyes to the

lost worlds of medieval and Renaissance Germany.

Admission is free; don’t miss it.

our web site www.gcnews.co.uk

. . . . The views expressed in Glass Circle News are those of its contributors . . . .
2

Ink-drawn copy of the Zoude catalogue showing the stuck in crest and bill poster of which

the most age-distressed areas have been trimmed off. Untrimmed copies of this poster

and the crest are in the Rakow collection.
GLASS CIRCLE NEWS No. 113, 2007

Found Wanting, the Putative Sebastien Zoude Glass

Catalogue of 1762.
by David C. Watts*

The Namur Belgian, Sebastien Zoude is
recognised, probably correctly, as the first
glassmaker on the continent to perfect the
manufacture of English lead crystal. A

putative catalogue of his glassware

patterns contains numerous examples of

English style air-twist, opaque-twist and

Newcastle glasses. Its significance for

collectors of English glass is, therefore,
immeasurable. This catalogue, of which

there are two forms, came, in a manner
unknown, into the hands of Belgian

historian, Raymond Chambon. Following

his death the entire Chambon library was
purchased by The Corning Museum of

Glass for its library. As described in GC

News 93 and 94, an earlier catalogue in

the collection, called the Catalogue
Colinet was found by Hugh Tait to be a
forgery. Correspondence from our Hon. Vice President,

Dwight Lanmon relating to the Catalogue Colinet and to
the Chambon collection in general, incidentally raised

doubts about the authenticity of the Zoude Catalogue. With

Hugh’s help and the generous co-operation of the Rakow

Library I undertook a study of the Zoude catalogue. Our
findings have just been published in the latest issue of the

Journal of Glass Studies
(vol. 49, 2007, pp. 153-178).
Of the two forms of the catalogue, one is drawn in ink in a

large leather-bound ledger and the other is drawn in red

chalk ( a common graphic material of the 18
th

century) on

small irregular sheets of paper subsequently stuck onto
(approx. A3) thin card. Each consists of 460 almost
identical drawings of 197 drinking glasses as well as

bottles, general tableware and pharmaceutical items. The

scale and quality of the drawings varies in different sections
of the catalogue, notably the pharma-

ceutical items where a large number are

crammed onto each page. The drawing of

opaque and air twist glasses would only
be recognised as such by one who was
familiar with these designs. Further, the

bowls and stem shapes of the Newcastles

show little concordance with those in the
known collections I was able to study. In

general, most of the bowl shapes were
bell or round funnel There were a couple

of ogee but no double ogee bowls and no

drawn (Silesian) stems.

*All pictures are copyright of D.C. Watts and The
Corning Museum of Glass.
The ink drawings are of generally poor

Version of the Zoude catalogue with drawings in red chalk stuck onto large sheets of thin
quality, such as by a person unfamiliar

card contained in a relatively modern folder with ties.

with what he is trying to depict. Smudged

Below, detail of another page showing tableware with printed black lines running through
areas revealed that the ink was a mixture

the paper. The jug is a 19th century design not found in the 18th century.

of black and vermillon-coloured inks

rather than the typical brownish iron-gaul based ink that

might be expected for a C.18th date. Some of the items

have late 18
th
or 10 century associations rather than 1762.

Indeed, Chambon initially dated the catalogues as
c.

1780

but adopted the earlier date when he found that Zoude had

submitted an application for a renewal of his contract

(octroi) in 1763 to which he (Chambon) thought the
catalogue appeared to relate more closely. There is no

written text or dedication in either catalogue as might be
expected for the time; nor is there a copy in the Belgian

Which stem type? These, drawn in ink, I

think are meant to be opaque twists. Note

the consistent depiction of a central double

thread surrounded by a double spiral. Do
you have one of these in a rather greyish

metal?

types shown in the catalogue.

GLASS CIRCLE NEWS No. 113, 2007

Namur official archives to indicate that the catalogue had been submitted as part of
Zoude’s octroi application. The evidence was suspicious but far from conclusive.

Following Hugh’s untimely death and my election as a Corning Fellow I was able

to study the catalogues first hand in the Rakow Library. Their shortcomings
became immediately apparent. They were undated and all the graphic elements

(title on the cover of the leger etc.) relating to Zoude had been stuck on.
Surprisingly, the Rakow collection even included spare printed labels as though

more such catalogues might be contemplated. But conclusive evidence was the
finding that the title page of both catalogues was an age-distressed bill-poster of

about 1757 rebutting a complaint by the local shopkeepers over the poor quality of
Zoude’s glasses supplied to them. Clearly both catalogues had been assembled at a

much later date and probably in the 19
t
h century. Some of the chalk drawings had

printed black lines on them such as might be found in a pocket notebook. These

could be original and some might date back to Zoude himself as drawings of

glasses that he had seen and might contemplate making in his own glasshouse. He
was trained as a master goldsmith and had no earlier connection with glassmaking.
Zoude clearly did make a variety of glassware in the English metal, including a

carillon of glass bells but probably not in sufficient quantity unduly to disturb the

English market. More important for the historian, these catalogue images can not

be used as evidence that he made the glass
depicted or to attributing a date to their

own specimens. Several appear in

existing catalogues including one by
Robert Charleston relating to the

Waddesdon collection.

Perhaps Chambon had his own
suspicions. There is yet another

catalogue relating to the French firm of
Montherme, not far away in the Vosge
mountains and founded in 1668. Most

of the drinking glasses in this catalogue
were found by Chambon to be

essentially identical to those in the

Zoude catalogue. The Rakow Library

has a photocopy bearing the name of

Chambon’s contemporary, French
historian James Barrelet. Again it is

undated and has no text. I was unable to

establish the exact location or get

permission to view the original and so

cannot comment on it in detail.

Large drawing
of a chandelier in red chalk.

The shaded-in blocks are wood supports for
the glass branches. Beneath the heavy
If Baar, as the premier glass collector in

shading, original glass globes for supporting
Belgium, was the mystery source of all

the branches are
just discernable
indicating

the Zoude family material that came

that this was probably an English design
into Chambon’s possession, this would

copied and modified for typical continental
certainly explain the prominence of

production. This drawing, reproduced by

Chambon in his book, is not included in the

Museum Curtius in Liege in 1952 and,
I catalogue although

speculate, what better way of getting his

benefaction recorded for posterity than to donate the

documentary evidence for it to Chambon. The latter, unlike

his treatment of the Catalogue Colinet (which was not
known to be a fake at that time and is represented by several

pages of illustrations) does not include any examples taken
from the Zoude catalogue except for a chalk drawings of a

chandelier and fitments which are not part of the catalogues

proper. Instead, the catalogues’ contents are summarised in

some detail and photographs are included of no less that 40

glasses (of a total of 52) itemised as being in the Baar

collection. These include six pieces, such as a tazza with

jelly glasses, exactly reproduced in the Zoude catalogue, For Chambon, although Armand Baar was dead, there could

even to depicting exactly the same jelly glass from several have been other considerations making the problem>>

We move from fact to speculation when

we ask the question
How did this all come

about?
Was Chambon a criminal who was

perpetrating a fraud for personal gain?
This, I think, can be discounted although

he was notably secretive over allowing

the catalogues to be studied by others. At

the time he was writing his book
L’

Histoire de la Verrerie en Belgique du re

siecle a nos Jours,
(1955). Chambon’s

problem was that there was no (or very
little) C.18th glass that he could

specifically identify as being of Belgian

origin. The Zoude catalogue, with its 460

illustrations, provided a gratifying

solution to this problem.

Chambon conspicuously dedicates his
book to Armand Baar a prominent

collector in Belgium who had been
building his collection from around 1930.

Baar presented his collection to the
Chambon’s dedication. Further, if along

he states that it is.

with a variety of other important family

documents (also in the Rakow library),

Baar had acquired the six fine pieces mentioned above

directly from the Zoude estate we have the final piece of the
puzzle. In our JGS paper we are ambiguous about the source

of the ink catalogue but it is a substantial piece of work and I
wonder if it was actually commissioned by Baar but
ultimately rejected by him because of its poor quality. On

the other hand the sticking onto sheets of thin card of chalk-
drawn drawings cut out from old reference notebooks is
quite likely to have been by a young member of the Zoude

family, perhaps as a pasttime for a wet Sunday afternoon.

GLASS CIRCLE NEWS No. 113, 2007

dElostiplif Re./kcitioco-ws, 6y g. sPutiv dead,
The ability of
Glass Circle News
to bring together

apparently separate subjects into a common strand is
illustrated in our last issue. There David Watts reported on

his visit to the Toledo Glass Museum, whilst I reflected on

the Exeter Flute, and its place in the pantheon of Jacobite

glass. Shortly after that issue appeared I acquired a copy of
a book with the unoriginal title of
The Art of Glass’

(2006), edited by Jutta Annette Page, curator of Glass at
Toledo; it is the fourth book of this title to join my shelves.

Of a type that is becoming increasingly popular, the book
considers one hundred items, or in some cases groups of
items, drawn from the collection of the Toledo Museum,

each is given at least a double page spread and a colour

illustration. It covers the whole span of glass, from the

ancient to contemporary Art Glass. Item 40, entitled
‘A

Diplomatic Gifi?’ is
a Dutch flute glass almost sixteen

inches high, diamond engraved with a portrait of King

Charles II, with an inscription round the rim:
“God Bless

King Charlis (sic) the Second”.
Attributing the glass to

1660-1685, the contributor reflects upon whether this glass

was a gift to King Charles from the City of Amsterdam at
the time of his coronation in London on 23′ April 1661.
Amsterdam was represented at the ceremony by their

Burgomeister, Johan Huydecoper who died later that year;

there is in the Rijksmuseum a beaker dated to the previous

year, 1660, and engraved with the four Continents, on

which Huydecoper standing in front of his mansion,
Goudestein, represents Europe (Rijksmuseum catalogue,

VoLII, item 183).
The suggestion that this was a coronation gift seems very

speculative and to stretch the sources cited; indeed, to

attribute the glass just to the period from Charles’

Restoration in 1660 seems unjustified, for Royalists, and

this includes the Dutch Court, regarded his accession as

being in 1649, and he had already been crowned at Scone in
Scotland on New Year’s Day of 1651. But, this glass has
considerable similarity to the Exeter flute, although it is by

no means identical. The Exeter flute is an inch taller, and

the portrait of Charles is handled differently; the
inscriptions are the same, although the Exeter flute avoids

the misspelling of Charles’ name and also carries the

blasted and burgeoning oak, which the Toledo glass lacks.

From a rather indifferent illustration of the Exeter glass the

script of the two blessings seems similar. On consulting the
curator at Exeter, who is familiar with the Toledo glass, he

confirms that the engraver of both glasses might be the

same, but that this is far from certain. The Exeter glass
came from the Arden family, and the family tradition is that

it was used at a banquet given to King Charles in Dorset;

unfortunately there is no record of Charles ever having
been at such a banquet. However, the Arden family in
Staffordshire were possibly involved in harbouring Charles

at Boscobel during his flight after the battle of Worcester in

1651, although in a very indirect capacity. One always

suspects that there is a nugget of distorted truth in these

seemingly impossible family legends, but what that grain of

truth might be in this instance we shall probably never
know, and it seems nigh on impossible that the glass

>> difficult for him. It was further
complicated by his discovery of the

concordance with the drinking glasses in the

Montherme catalogue (the original was

probably never owned by either Chambon or

Barrelet).
Following Sebastien Zoude’s death in 1678

the family continued making ordinary glass

but no more facon d’Anglaise lead crystal.

Drawings of the crystal glass designs could,

therefore have been sold off to Montherme at
that date. This would further explain the
inclusion in the Zoude catalogue of possibly

new chalk drawings of bottles and

pharmaceutical ware apparently by a

different hand and on different scales.
Whether Montherme subsequently made

facon d’Anglaise lead crystal I do not know.
Implications

Apart from the fact that the catalogue

cannot be used to date the items illustrated
or even that they were actually made by

Zoude it resurrects the problems about the

when and where lead glass was made on

the continent. While we may reasonably

infer that some of the poorer quality lead glasses, including

the Newcastles, actually have a Low Counties origin (see
GC News 92 and 93), at best these cannot be dated until

after 1656/7. For example, should the Greenwood point
engraved glass in the BM, dated 1650, be described as

“Probably Dutch”?
There is, so far, no evidence that lead

glass was made on the continent before 1656/7 after a

possible brief flurry of activity in the late 17th. century.

Zoude’s predecessor in Namur, F-H-J Colnet made

Bohemian
cristal
but not English lead crystal. X

information emerges that the

neighbouring Bishopric of Liege at one

stage threatened to withhold supplying
ashes essential for the batch formulation.

It is certain, nevertheless, that the choice

of Chambon as recipient of the Zoude
material, wherever it came from, was the
best way at that time of enhancing the

collector status of Armand Baar and

Belgium’s role as an important player in

18`
h
century crystal glassmaking.

An ink-drawn page of goblets with
air twists. The glasses are not

Although Sebastien Zoude never received the
numbered although ‘1•1°’ is written

hoped for financial support in the renewal of
alongside each glass.

his
octroi
in 1763 the order for a carillon of bells,

presumably involving lead glass to improve the ring, must

have kept his firm viable. Further he was commissioned to

make several drinking glasses in Bohemian crystal,

suggesting that competition from fawn d’Anglaise lead
crystal was not welcomed by the controlling Habsburg

family. Nevertheless, Zoude did make a modest amount of
lead glass and quite possibly in a coal-fired furnace.

Alongside other problems relating to squabbles over the
duties on glass charged at the various state borders,

Exhibition:

21st January – 29th February 2008,

Monday – Friday
11:00 am – 5:30 pm

See large pictures in

colour on our web site
gcnews.co.uk
LASS CIRCLE NEWS No. 113, 2007

existed at the time of King Charles’ flight, when he did pass

through Dorset.

Inventories are always simultaneously fascinating and

tantalising for what they tell us about how our forebears
used glass; often one just encounters a single inventory,

which may be difficult to put into context. However, in
1998 the
Worcestershire Historical Society
under the

editorship of Malcolm Wanklyn published a group of one
hundred and nineteen
Inventories of Worcestershire

Landed Gentry 1537-1786.
This collection is especially

valuable, as it allows us to reflect upon the increased use of

all types of glassware during the evolutionary period of

classical English glass. The
Landed Gentry
excludes on the

one hand Peers of the Realm, and on the other hand,
labourers, farmers, merchants and
the middling sort

towns. Thus they are the group, together with the much

smaller but considerably more wealthy aristocracy, whose
acquisition and use of glass fired its development

throughout the C.17
th
and C.18t

h
; it was not until the C.19
th

that the use of glassware spread widely beyond this group.
The inventories in question were almost entirely prepared
for probate (although not all are priced), for a statute of

1529 required executors to provide specific details of the

estate of the recently deceased. Inheritance and probate fell
under Church jurisdiction, so mostly inventories are to be

found in the records of ecclesiastical courts, at least until

the mid C.18
th
. The information yielded by these

inventories is hedged about with qualifications; whilst a
record of glassware can be accepted as positive, its absence

is less conclusive, for some records include statements such

as
“all other furniture in the lodgeing chambers”, “and

other things”
and so on. Nonetheless, one can accept that

the pattern, of frequency and particularly the amount of
Glass recorded, is indicative of the situation at that time.

The C.16
th
reveals that there was very little glass indeed; of

twenty-nine inventories between 1537 and 1599, only two

(7%) contain any drinking glass, in 1566 and 1581, and but

a single
fayre looking glass’
appears, in 1581, valued at 3

shillings and 4 pence. Verzelini did not have a large market
amongst the Worcestershire gentry! As one might expect,
things moved on apace in the C.17

, although slowly in the

first half, when only 14% of the inventories listed drinking

glass, compared with 34% after the Restoration in 1660,

and 42% in the period 1700 to 1786. However, even in the

mid C.18
th
and allowing for slap-dash recording of

glassware, approaching half the gentry did not possess
drinking glasses. Very many more glass bottles were listed

than table glass; two of the inventories of the second half of

the C.17
th
list some 160 dozen bottles each, whilst the

maximum number of drinking plus dessert glasses on one

inventory was 24, although only a few of the records

specify numbers.

An even more dramatic growth is demonstrated by looking

glasses after the Restoration; before 1660 only three

‘Glasses’
are recorded, whilst in the last forty years of the

C.17
th
, half the inventories record looking glasses,

encompassing 55 mirrors in all. Early in the C.18
th
looking

glasses, pier glasses and chimney glasses abound, and in
most cases exceed the drinking glasses enumerated

(although much of the table Glass is still simply described

as
“a parcel of Glasses”
or similarly unquantified).

`Weather Glasses’,
or mercury barometers, first appear in

1698, amounting in total to six examples by 1759, and

some garden glass,
‘Melon Glasses’, ‘Bell Glasses’, ‘Hand

Lights’
etc appear after 1730.

Thus, it is an interesting reflection that even amongst the

gentry, by 1740 by no means all their inventories list

drinking glasses, despite almost all of them owning

significant amounts of silver plate. (There are only three

inventories later than 1740, the last of them being for

1786.) In only a few cases were the inventories sufficiently
detailed to establish individual values, but judging by these
few the probate value seems to have been about half the
retail cost. The advance of ceramic tableware seems to have

been even slower than that of glassware, and almost all the

estates owned substantial quantities of pewter, as well as

silver. Worcestershire is a long way from London and

despite a few of the inventories mentioning London

property, the adoption of London table fashions amongst

the gentry seems to have been a slow process. +

Exhibition/Symposium

Peter Layton and Friends –
Celebrating 30 years of London Glassblowing

Symposium / Discussion forum:
Saturday 26th January 2008, 3-6pm

“Contemporary Glass – Sex Appeal
versus Content”

An enquiry into the challenges facing the
survival and sustainability of this versatile

medium in the 21st Century?

Tickets £12 or £8 for concessions, book your
place now.

Tel: 0207 403 2800 / Fax: 0207 403 7778
Email: [email protected]

Join us at:-

London
Glassblowing Workshop, 7 The Leather Market, Weston Street, London, SE1 3ER.

GLASS CIRCLE MATTERS

GLASS CIRCLE NEWS No. 113, 2007

The AGM in November saw Derek Woolston, our retiring
Hon. Treasurer and Membership Secretary, present his last

annual financial report. The Circle, although slightly

overspent on the year, was still comfortably placed with

£12,000 in the bank. Members subscribed generously

towards a substantial cheque being presented to him in our
picture (right) by Hon. President, Simon Cottle. A substantial

The Chairman
reports
bouquet of flowers was presented to Mrs. Faith Woolston in

full recognition that behind every successful man . . . etc.

Another Committee retirement this year was Henry Fox whose service in devising

and producing Circle exhibitions had been indispensable. The contributions of

other Committee members and of the GC News team were fully acknowledged.

The Chairman’s report further reminded us of the full and interesting series of

lectures and outings in the past year.

The Specimens Meeting that followed produced an interesting range of glassware from possibly late 17th century to modern.
The former was a small flask with gadrooning round the base and applied prunts (picture on web site). These flasks are

difficult to date as they are not all early. Among the 18th century glass was a tall wine with bell bowl over an attenuated
Silesian stem, a small pan-topped wine with cut stem and, towards the end of the century, a heavily cut jelly glass.
The picture left shows some of the later glass, a blue glass fire

extinguisher, a modern Stourbridge cameo-style engraved vase – white on
blue with pierced frets, a badged Russian caviar strainer that baffled most
of those present, a Webb-engraved rock crystal goblet, a red lithyalin

scent bottle and, just showing the spout, a Regency cut sauce boat. *

From Derek Woolston
Having retired from the positions of Hon. Treasurer and Membership

Secretary after a period of nearly fifteen years I thank all who

contributed to the generous gift made to me at the AGM, and for the
presentation of flowers to my wife, Faith. I will use the money to
purchase a glass to remind me of the many good friends I have made.
Chairman’s Newsletter
With long winter nights looming in, I seem to be

spending more money on books than glass. However the

reduction in the cost of printing over the last decade
means that far more high quality books are being
produced now, usually with original research rather than a

rehash of previous works, as tended to happen in the

1970s and ’80s.
Dr. Petr Novy kindly sent me a copy of a hardback

book recently produced by his museum in Jablonec n N

with text in Czech, German and English entitled
The

Jablonec Button
which I have reviewed for GC News and

our website. Jablonec has been the world capital of button

making for the last 200 years and will be our headquarters

for our forthcoming trip to the Czech Republic. I have

also just received a further new publication from the

museum
Everyday Art
with two articles, one on the

designer Vaclav Hanus, born 1924, and the other on
crystalware from the Jizera mountains.
The co-editor of our newsletter, Andy McConnell, in

2006 produced Miller’s
20th-Century Glass,

256 pages

packed with facts and illustrations including lots of

contemporary patterns and advertisements. Andy’s
formative years were spent as a popular journalist and it

shows in the readability of the text, and, apparently, in the
sales figures. It would have needed at least twenty

monographs of equal length to cover the entire field in

detail, (and nobody would have bought them), so a

specialist will occasionally find one of his favourites

missing in his particular field.
Celle la vie.

In 2005 Helmut Ricke, whom some of us met on our

trip to Germany, edited a magisterial catalogue,
Czech
Glass 1945-1980. Design in the face of Adversity

accompany an exhibition that travelled from Corning to Prague via Vaduz. The distinguished contributors, and the
photographers, between them, have produced an overview

of an astonishing creative movement during a period of

oppression.
I have also been reading Jutta-Anette Page’s
The Art

of Glass’,
published in 2006, just before the opening of the

new glass museum in Toledo, Ohio, which David
discussed in the last Newsletter. Although Todelo’s

collection of European glass is not in the same league as

their ancient glass, they do have some very good British
glass including a sealed Ravenscroft decanter; a royal

armorial Beilby [one of only 7 or 8 known]; a pair of

silver-gilt mounted covered cups with the blue glass
ascribed to the workshop of Thomas Betts, and a large pair

of cameo vases by Thomas Woodall with typical maidens

on one side and the arms of the Cure family on the other.
Finally I have been reading the 2007
Journal of Glass

Studies
published by the Corning Museum of Glass, which

includes a paper by our Editor, David Watts [who here

admits to holding three doctorates in Evolution, Medicine

and Genetics]:
Assessing the Authenticity of the Putative

Sebastien Zoude Catalog of 1762,
describing work he

carried out with our late Hon. President, Hugh Tate, on this

contentious document, part of the Raymond Chambon
archive held in Corning, which turns out to be a fake of

dubious origin.
Ask for a glass book for Christmas, you know it

makes sense.

John
P.
Smith, ,.Afivember, 2007

GLASS CIRCLE NEWS No. 113, 2007

The Older Glass Collector –
Press-moulded Art Deco

Going through the agony
of gen-ing up on style.

That’s what glass collectors

are doing all the while.
And as I look around me

I really have to smile
at what is called Art Deco

in twenty’s, thirty’s style.
See the pictures in colour on the

gcnews.co.uk web site.

The term, Art Deco was devised by Bevis Hillier in 1968 to

embrace a complex of styles that emerged in Europe
between the two World Wars. It is typified by a rather

curious combination of angles and generally minimalised

curves. On the whole it does not lend itself readily to blown

glass designs although there are many so defined as
representing a break from the sweeping reflexed curves of

Art Nouveau and traditional English geometric cutting

around the turn of the 20th century. Much of blown Art
Deco is recognised by its after cutting and engraving rather

than by the shape of the vessel itself.

Most pressed Art Deco is non-lead glass frequently

coloured either pale pink by selenium or pale green by a

mixture of iron and chromium frequently enlivened with a

touch of uranium. It perhaps became popular to make
because these colours do not require the oxidising

conditions associated with lead crystal. However, some

notable pieces have been produced in England.

Our first example (above) is in some ways a transition piece
simulating a clear blown
glass. The squarish flared

shape (Ht. 12cm.) is

reinforced by the oblique
pseudo-cut decoration within

well-defined boxes. Wheel-

cut blazes were used in the

18th and 19th century but
never in this way.

Next (left) is a pink vase with
a simulated basket weave top
running into a circuit of nine

panels and terminating in a

solid diamonded foot with

overtones of traditional
cutting. It sits on a separate

black stand. This impressive
piece is 26cm. tall and was

0 bought in Scotland some
years ago. Maker is unknown.
The next two vases are by Walther & Sohne of Germany,

prodigious producers of finely crafted Art Deco forms, the

The upper one is in dull green with a satin finish (Ht.

17cm). the one below, called
Greta
pattern, is in a new

colour, copper blue, with a satin finish applied to the leaf-
shaped central panel, to side panels not visible in the
picture and to the integral stepped plinth. Both were made

to a high standard in 4-part moulds with the mould seam

marks cunningly concealed within the design.

On the other hand

Art Deco lends
itself readily to the

planes and angles

so easily achieved
by press moulding.

More important in

the context of this
article it is mostly
cheap to buy and

not all that difficult

to find. Prices,

however, are on

the way up.
Curves were not

completely a thing of

the past but the broad

sweeping

panels

decorating this green

vase and the flat lobed
handles, as well as the

colour, define it as Art

Deco. It is of a

technically clever

design to exploit a

simple

two-part

mould which divides

down the edge of the

handles.

Ht.
c.
17 cm.

GLASS CIRCLE NEWS No. 113, 2007

Probably the most prolific of

English makers of
Between

the Wars
decorative glass,

was Bagley of Knottingley.
Much of their tableware

output in particular was
unremittingly Art Deco like

this
Grantham

pattern vase. It

was designed by Alexander
Hardie Williamson, and made
in green, pale blue amber and

pink, both opaque and clear.

It was sold with an insert

(often missing, as here) to

position the flower stems. Selenium pink and uranium

green were two of Bagley’s favourite colours. As well as

the characteristic terraced foot of these pieces the firm also

made separate black stands; the vase, bottom left on page 8,

could be one of their products for that reason.

This vase in selenium
pink (Ht. 19.5 cm) is

either another Bagley or

a Walther & Sohne
product. The prominent

tapering leaf-like feature,

seen on the two vases on
the previous page, seems

to be a design feature of
Walther products. In this

example a ring of three
are interspersed with
bands of chevrons with

alternative

chevrons

matted. Made in a 3-part

mould it is quite a
complex piece, although, with an old-fashioned star-cut

foot, perhaps not one of the firm’s most elegant.

Both Bagley and Walther & Sohne are also associated with

decorative marine motifs. The bowl below, in golden

amber (19.5 cm diam.), is unmarked but may be by

Walther. The raised pattern here includes a snail, starfish

and seaweed as well two prominent fish. Although of the

same period I am unsure as to whether it should be
classified as Art Deco. A Walther dish with a somewhat

similar marine design is shown on our web site.
Another English firm particularly associated with Art Deco

designs is Davidson of Gateshead. Davidson’s were more

distinctive than Bagley both in design and originality in the

use of of colour. Cloud glass, a simulated tortoise-
shell, was first

introduced in 1923 as
part of an expansion

of their product range.

This piece, (Ht. 14cm),

has a satin copper-blue

body with manganese
purple streaks. The
colour is essentially a

copy of Wheildon’s*

Tortoiseshell
produced

on ceramics in the mid-

18th century and made

with the same colouring

materials. It was also made in other colours. The shape is
not particularly Art Deco.

On the other hand there is no doubt about this

uncompromisingly angular bowl, very appropriate for

press-moulding. It is approx. 36 cm wide. Also, it is made
in Davidson’s more realistic tortoise-shell in shades of

brown with a satinised finish.
The
use of genuine tortoise-

shell has a very long history but seems to have become
particularly popular between the Wars.

Davidson’s also developed a range of angular vases in other
colours, clear, opaque and with the swirled cloud effect.

These seem to have been particularly popular in their day as

they are found in a range of sizes. Those below, pressed in

3-part moulds, are (left to right) opalescent cloud orange-
red (Ht. 13cm.), cloud opaque green (Ht. 19cm.) and

transparent dark amber (Ht. 24cm.). None of these and the

above pieces are marked although Davidson had a well-
known Lion in Crown trade-mark. According to a web site

some cloud glass was made in the 1950s for the post-war
market but I have no further information on it. Reissues

from old Davidson moulds certainly took place. *

* Thomas Whieldon, a contemporary of Josiah Wedgwood.

GLASS CIRCLE NEWS No. 113, 2007

Notes on the Importance of Cullet (Part 1)
by

Robert Wilkes*

Like the chicken and the egg,

glassmaking depends on a

multiplier process: To make glass,

you need glass.

This is one of two factors which
form an inescapable equation, the
limitations of which inhibited the

rapid growth of glassmaking for
centuries. The other is the need for

a high temperature refractory

product to contain the melting

process. It is important to

remember the difference between

simply remelting already existing

glass and the long, exhausting
process of founding glass from

raw materials.

Recycled glass is called cullet.

The word is a corruption of collet,

the French for collar or neck, and

originally referred to the ring of
glass left on the blow-pipe after

each piece of work was cracked

off. It came to mean any off-cut or

failed work and, later, any

secondary items of glass purchased
A man and

woman select cullet from a barrel, followed by

washing the glass, breaking it into small pieces and fi-

nally transporting it to the glasshouse.
From Diderot

for recycling.
Indeed, many early glassmakers

may have done nothing except

remelt cullet, judging by the poor
quality of their refractory

materials. This would account for

the very small amount of glass in

the old world compared to other
industrial artifacts such as pottery,

bronze and iron, Waste pottery has

almost no residual value. While

there was intrinsic value in all
metal objects, because of the

abiding value of their usefulness it

was not much more costly to smelt

the metals from ores?

So whence came the chicken? In

the very beginning, perhaps as

long as four thousand years ago,

glass evolved as a by product of

ancient ceramic kilns where it
occurred in the form of a glaze.
For a very long time it then existed

independently only as a semi-

vitreous matrix, worked in the

form of a paste, and only the outer

surface being a true glass.

Cullet was used in the initial stages of the fitting process, to
glaze the inside of new pots and so limit the corrosive

affects of the active chemical ingredients of the batch, and

also in the final stages of the fusion of the frit.

Glass becomes just visibly fluid at temperatures as low as
500°C but at the fusion temperature of the frit, the

pulverized cullet melts rapidly and flows easily into the

gaseous interstices in the semi-fused frit. It performs its
essential task by greatly increasing the rate of heat transfer

between the particles and accelerates fusion. To make glass
in early furnaces, it took about 48 hours of firing time at a

temperature of up to 1,500°C even with 40% by weight of
cullet added. Once the whole mass is amorphous, i.e. the

crystal structure of the raw silica is destroyed, it can be

remelted in a very short time at a much lower temperature.

While it is technically possible to make glass from raw

materials without the use of cullet, it is doubtful if medieval

glassmakers could achieve it. Any attempt, even to make

small amounts, would require enormous amounts of extra
fuel for the greatly prolonged firing time, at least another 24

hours, at the necessarily higher temperature. In practise, you

simply cannot make glass without cullet unless you have a

very high temperature refractory product and early
glassmakers had no such thing.’ Even with adequate

supplies of cullet, early wood-fired furnaces consumed

twenty times the weight of fuel to the weight of glass
produced.

*Written by the late Robert Wilkes in 1999 and published
here for the first time by kind permission of Mrs. Yvonne

Wilkes.
At some point, at least two thousand years ago, small

quantities of a truly amorphous glass were produced – a

glass which could be blown and drawn into delicate shapes.
Someone discovered the almost magical process of fluxing

whereby existing glass is pulverized and introduced into the

mix. This dramatically reduced the time taken and the

temperature at which the mix fused into a homogeneous
mass. Once this was discovered, the hunger for cullet began

and would continue almost to the present day. It is only in

the past quarter century that it became normal for a large

proportion of available cullet to be wasted. The amount of

energy lost in dumped glass containers is enormous.

It could be argued that much of the glass in the world is
related, being descended through a slow process of

regeneration and multiplication in each remelt. Glass has

travelled the world since before Roman times and cullet was
a valuable commodity which was traded between nations

five hundred years ago.

The semi-vitreous matrix of ancient times became known as
the product of fitting. The original two-stage process of

glassmaking involved two separate furnaces. First, the

Calcar, a flat hearth process wherein the raw silica source,

usually well-washed sand, was heated in a mix with
chemical fluxes until surface adhesion of the particles

created a matrix. If quartz pebbles were used, this required a
preliminary calcining period followed by quenching the

pebbles in cold water to shatter them.

Second, the melting furnace, usually with six pots standing
in two rows with the fire between. These were preheated

before filling with a mix of finely crushed frit and cullet and

GLASS CIRCLE NEWS No. 113, 2007

were refilled while in the fire as long as they survived the
heat, usually no more than three weeks.

Evidence has recently emerged of the importance of cullet
as a result of the work done by Staffordshire County
Archaeologist, Christopher Welch and his team at
Wolseley. The excellent paper he published on the subject

in PMA (Post-medieval Archaeology) Journal (vol. 31,

1997) reveals the two-tier nature of the site; i.e. It has two

distinct periods and two sets of artifacts. Of widely separate

medieval and post-medieval dates, these provide proof of

the progress made in refractory design and performance.

The first period pots c.1300 were of such low temperature
performance that in order to survive they would have

required a very high percentage of cullet in the mix. There

are indications that this furnace operated at a temperature of

about 900°C and there was evidence of very frequent pot
failure even at this low heat. The furnace of the later period

c.1550 appears to have operated successfully at a

temperature of about 1200°C with far less pot failures.

The Wolseley site, and also the previously excavated
Bagot’s Park site nearby, both pose enigmas. Why was a

large quantity of perfectly usable cullet left abandoned near

the furnace? It seems likely the cullet, which was well
sorted, was buried in a cache but the owner failed to return
to reclaim it. This tends to indicate operations on the site

were intermittent over long periods.

When a furnace was abandoned, good cullet was far too

valuable to leave behind and usually the items found have
been rejected by their owners as worthless; either too small

and scattered, too contaminated or of incompatible

composition.

The most valuable cullet was primary cullet – that which

was produced as hot glass off-cuts in their own glassmaking
operations. Most of this went straight back into the pot or
into the next batch. Primary off-cut cullet is rarely found in

any quantity on early sites.

All early glassmakers were desperately short of cullet

simply because they did not generate enough in their own
operations to sustain the process. Of a single pot of a

successful melt, a maximum of about 65% of finished work
could be produced. The remainder might be primary cullet

but about 5% of this would be lost as too small to recover. A
further 5% would be lost when skimmed off with the slag

and too contaminated, leaving only 25% to be recycled

including that which was left in the bottom of the pot.

With a minimum of 40% cullet required in each mix, there

was always a deficiency of not less than 15% which needed
to be bought in, when available, or else a larger proportion

of a perfectly good batch was sacrificed as cullet instead of
being made into goods. Even the white scum or sandiver,

skimmed off the top of a new potful, was recycled leaving
only a small amount of infusible material in the form of

slag. The furnaces also consumed their own waste. The

wood ashes provided a bonus in the form of alkali (potash)

and also traces of lime.’

Much early glass contains fine bubbles. This was probably
due to a shortage of cullet making it difficult to raise the

temperature of the mix after the final stage of fusion, when

the bubbles are formed, and expel them at the necessarily
lower viscosity. The condition is known as seeding and the

process of removing seeds as plaining. If this process did
not take place rapidly then the seeds became difficult to

expel and remained permanently in the glass, even if

remelted as cullet.

The smallest size unrecoverable cullet on any early
glassmaking site would include a significant number of very
fine threads of glass. These threads were produced as glass

was repeatedly drawn out of the pot after plaining, when the

glass is at its highest temperature and very fluid, and is
being gradually reduced in temperature until it reaches its

optimum working viscosity. They were the final test
samples before working. These threads provide the best
indication of the quality and composition of the glass made

on that site because they are most unlikely to have been

brought in as secondary cullet.

The shortage of cullet, combined with a lack of suitable
refractory clay, were probably the main reasons for the
failure of the Jamestown, Virginia, venture in 1608.
5

The

very idea of attempting to make glass in an isolated new

world without a sustainable source of cullet proves how
little the venturers understood about the glassmaking

process. The famous
Tryal of Glasse may,

in fact, have been

a fraud; they may simply have remelted some of the cullet
brought from England and sent the sample back just to keep

the investors happy. Judging by the small size of the three
ships that carried the original settlers and their precious

supplies, the amount of cullet taken to start up the

glassmaking operation must have been hopelessly
inadequate, and so was the amount of refractory clay or

melting pots. Even so, excavations have revealed a variety

of useable cullet left when the furnace was abandoned.’

There must be a very good reason why any appreciable
amount of cullet is found on a glassmaking site. If the cullet

is primary – the result of work on that site – there is no more

reason to discard it than there is for a shopkeeper to throw

away his small change. But glassmakers were sometimes
forced to leave a site hastily because of hostile attack or a
natural human tragedy such as plague may have struck

them. They may never have returned to the site. There could
also be a long-term accumulation of bought-in secondary

cullet which was sorted out and rejected as incompatible

with their particular process. [to be continued]

Editorial notes.
I.
In fact, the medieval furnace is thought to have barely attained

1400
°
C.

2.
Apsley Pellatt’s best quality glass is said to have been made

exclusively from fresh batch materials but this must have been a

very unusual practice.

3.
Smelting bronze requires a similar temperature to that for

founding glass.

4.
Wood ash may contain up to around 50% lime, sufficient to

stabilise glass if not removed by purification processes.

5.
In addition to disease, starvation and attacks by the natives.

6.
The excavated material found more probably relates to the

second wave of glassmakers some ten years later.

GLASS CIRCLE NEWS No. 113, 2007

The extraordinary diversity of glassware is surely amongst

its greatest attractions: every time I leave the house I

stumble upon things I’ve never previously seen. This an
amazing fact considering that over the past 30 years I’ve

amassed a collection now numbering between 25-30,000

pieces.

One of my most recent acquisitions falls into the ‘strange’
category. It is a lightweight soda-based liqueur decanter

decorated in acid-paste with probably the most bizarre
scene I’ve ever seen applied to glass: a group of soldiers in

pith helmets and Turkish-style fezzes firing muskets and

canon at a group of ‘natives’ taking cover beneath a palm

tree. Politically correct? Perhaps not, but very interesting
nonetheless. It was bought from a ‘runner’ who scours the

brocante
of northern France from her home near Montreuil,

and is almost certainly French or Belgian. But what does

the scene applied to it represent?

According to a historian friend, Michael Baldwin, it
provokes a couple of possibilities: ‘In 1881 the French

approached Tunis, their object being to restrain warlike

tribes and protect the Algerian frontier. A treaty was signed
with France which gave France the right to occupy
positions which they deemed to be necessary to secure the
frontier and the coast. In May of that year there was conflict

between the French and the Arabs. The French entered

Mater. On 18th May the Sultan of Turkey protested at the
treaty. By early June a French resident minister, virtually

the ruler, was appointed. By early September 2000 French

reinforcements arrived because of a deteriorating situation,

followed by 28,000 more. The Tunisian army, under the
Bey, the nominal ruler, was surrounded by early October,

which resulted in the amalgamation of the French and the

Bey’s army. All insurrection was suppressed by mid-

November and an occupying army of 20,000 was
announced on 29th November. However, there was still

some Arab incursion about a year later.

You have there the palm trees, insurrectionists, possible
Turkish hats, etc, which sort of makes sense. It is likely that

the decanter thus commemorates the French wars to
dominate Tunisia. A possible alternative scenario is the

1885 attack by Dahome on the French settlement at Zebo.

In 1892 the French parliament voted 3 million francs for an
expedition to the area to protect Porto Novo and Kotonou.

However, I don’t know if they have palm trees there!’

What a series of events to commemorate on a decanter! *

On Dec. 8th Andy is having a lecture cum tasting meeting
at Glass etc. in Rye on whether decanting improves the

flavour of wine. If interested give him a call or let us know

the results of your own experiments to pass on to members.

Clig41

C4410011140

Opening of Nazeing Museum of 20th Century British Domestic Glass
What defines the type of glass worthy of museum status?

Perhaps ancient excavated fragments that hint at vanished

civilisations? Maybe unique studio work, or pieces
demonstrating technical virtuosity are best-suited to

display cases?

Of course, glass that falls into those categories are already

well catered for: the V&A has an huge collection and

Broadfield House has an impressive selection drawn from
its environs. But what of ‘ordinary’ domestic British

glass? For example, the glassware of our childhood: the

transfer-printed beaker where Granny kept her teeth at

night, or the jug for our cereal milk? Or Ravenhead’s

textured
Sienna
goblets, given away in their millions at

petrol stations?

Stephen Pollock-Hill, owner of Nazeng Glass, has given

consideration to these questions, as I discovered in

September at the opening of the Nazeing Museum of 20th

Century British Domestic Glass. Housed in Nazeing’s

offices, a vast array of British domestic glass is displayed,
including a broad selection of the company’s own output.

The two-year project has culminated in about a thousand
pieces by most of Britain’s leading companies including
Whitefriars, Bagley, Stevens & Williams, Pyrex,

Dartington, etc, virtually all of them now defunct.

The museum is the first to concentrate in its subject, and is

full of items that will strike a familiar chord in most of us.

It’s too easy to overlook the Pyrex jug that you cracked

your eggs into, or the Chance tumbler with the funky
pattern that you bought in 1978. Yet these are part of our

cultural heritage and their history is now being preserved at

Nazeing.

As Andy McConnell observed, when formally opening the
museum, this really is an example of how museum
preservation can be deployed:
not
when items are scarce,

but whilst there is still time to preserve the history for the
next generation. As an example of this, Stephen Pollock-

Hill anticipates hosting parties of school children from the

surrounding areas, who would be treated to a factory tour,

culminating in an excursion around the Glass

Museum. Seeing familiar items on display, coupled with

cries of ‘My Mum’s got one of those!’ will hopefully help

them appreciate British domestic glass a little better and

think about its history a little more.
Max Kimber

GLASS CIRCLE NEWS No. 113, 2007

The Glass Sellers Prize for 2007
The exhibition at Peter Layton’s Glass Art Gallery, for the

Glass Sellers Prize was a great success with many visitors;

old and new clients have enjoyed the exciting array of

works on show and for has sale. The exhibition, which
included past winners and ended on October 19, was a

partner venue of the annual London Design Festival.

The Glass Sellers Prize 2007 was

awarded to Richard Jackson for

Triune IV
(picture right),

described as a courageous and

dynamic sculpture in cast glass. It
certainly had immediate impact

both for its design and the quality

of its execution.

The Glass Sellers Student award

was given to Ramon Beaskoetxea

Sans for
Bullfighting,

a large

installation and a powerful

indictment of his country’s cruel

sport. I rather felt that this piece,
which consisted of what I crudely

interpreted as a number of dead

black bulls testicles hanging from
the ceiling on strings, was not

dealt full justice by its location.

Hang-Sheun Yeung was
awarded the runners-up prize in

the student category for her

charming, delicate
Fish’s Tale.

Katharine Coleman, who else,

swept the board for the
engraving prize with her

masterpiece,
City Blocks Vase.

It was one of those pieces with

so much delicate detail cut with
the copper wheel with the

absolute precision at which

Katharine excels and would
drive the average engraver bonkers. The dish shown on the

cover of our last GC News was a worthy runner up. It
underlined the difficulties facing the judging panel in

assessing such disparate pieces reflecting such different and

difficult skills.

My thanks to Benedict Watts who was busy with the
camera while I concentrated on the gastronomic and social

aspects of a delightful evening.
Check out Ben’s pictures

of the winning entries in colour on our gcnews web site.

Gardeners Corner . . .
and beyond

Digging around I discovered that although it is generally
believed that the tulip was first found in Turkey the first

wild tulips were actually found by Turkish nomads in
Kazakhstan. Some time later they appeared in Turkey,

where these flowers became a symbol of fertility. From
Turkey these descendants of the lily family (Liliaceae)

arrived in Europe via the Belgian city of Antwerp.

For those unfamiliar with Kazakhstan it is roughly half way
between Bichkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan (you always
knew that!) and Chelyabinsk, famous as the centre for

building the Trans-Siberian Railway and the manufacture

of the T34 tank.

The glass interest of Chelyabinsk is that it is here that the
Russians store their highly radioactive waste in a sodium-

aluminum-phosphate glass (i.e. silicon is replaced by the
phosphorus-aluminium combination). What they do with it

after that is unclear but the city has a poor reputation for
radiation control! A long stay there is not recommended.
The technology was apparently originally French and was

the basis of the facility at Winscale, begun in 1990.

More to our interest is the Star’Glass company. For more
than 200 years it has been a recognized industry leader in
Russia and its dependencies. Its speciality is coloured sheet

glass. Perfect quality of coloured sheet glass has always

been the motto of the plant throughout its history.

Nowadays the Star’Glass company offers coloured sheet
glass to the world in 39 shades with various surface
treatments: drawn, textured and figured. It can also provide

a unique colourless glass flashed with opal. This coloured
glass is produced by a vertical drawing process which may

seem old fashioned (and probably is) but is appropriate to

the product. The usual colouring agents are used:- oxides of

selenium, cadmium, cobalt, manganese and copper.

Coloured sheet Star’Glass (unlike the once proud English
industry) claims to be used for a variety of architectural and

decorative purposes on the home market and for export.

Chelyabinsk’s Art Picture Gallery contains a collection (or

maybe a visual presentation) of rare Dyatkovo cut glass.
Other than it dates from the mid-nineteenth century and

was made in Bryansk I have no further information on it. If
anyone has information on this glass or its history please let
us know. If not I will recommend it to my co-editor for his

next foraging trip abroad. *

Preliminary Notice

Conference – Buying and Selling Glass
March 18th, 2008

Association for the History of Glass Limited
at The Wallace Collection

Hertford House, Manchester Square, London, W1U 3BN
Speakers include Colin Brain, Julia Poole, Peter Lole, Alex Werner, Anna Moran, Dr Jill Turnbull

and Roger Dodsworth.

Cost: £25, £20 (AHG members), £10 (students) for further

details and to book places please contact Martine Newby,
preferably by e-mail to

[email protected]

or by post to 1, Barlby Road, London. W10 6AN

GLASS

s rumus

GLASS CIRCLE NEWS No. 113,

2007

Books with D.C.W.

Journal of Glass Studies Vol. 49, 2007
27.3 x 203 cm. 292 pages, soft covers, much colour
Price $40.00.

As a Fellow of The Corning

Museum of Glass one of my

commitments is to promote the

Rakow Library and the
Corning Museum of Glass

publications. I am inexcusably

biased towards the 2007 JGS as
it contains my own article,

summarised from page 3 of

this newsletter. There are,
however, 15 main articles and

10 short notes. The subjects
inevitably veer towards the

more academic and often abstruse aspects of glass. This

time only four of the articles are not in English. I have been
pushing for them all to be in English as a language more

known by the less academic and particularly the American

public. There are English summaries but these are too short

to be really helpful.

The articles are chronologically arranged by subject. After

an article on ancient cameo glass fragments (in German)

there is an interesting description of the mould materials

used by glassblowers in Roman times. Limestone (marble)

was a popular material but also ceramic and sandstone was

used, with single instances of plaster and bronze. A mould

for a grape flask, thought originally to have been Roman,

was found to date to 1890-1930 underlining the importance

of such studies for exposing forgeries of this period.

Reports from archaeological excavations, often ongoing,
delve further into the early history of glass making. The
importance of Turkish glassmaking is poorly known. An

article on finds in Sagalasso suggest glass working there in

3-4 AD. A survey of finds elsewhere in Turkey seem to

support an AD rather than a BC industry but I found the
dating unclear. On the other hand there is no doubt about

the impressive array of finds of eastern Macedonian
glassware, window glass and lead came from in Philippi.

The city was founded 360 BC but largely destroyed by
earthquakes from the late 6t
h
century and never rebuilt.

Paul, the apostle, founded the first Christian church there in

AD 49-50. The discoveries includes lamps, flasks and
mosaics as well as 6.5 kilo of window glass. Much of it is

now displayed in their Museum of Byzantine Culture.

scrutiny of a Corning Museum team. The occurrence of a
double pontil relating to the method of enamelling is

recorded. The quality of the glass is poor with many

bubbles and blisters, some broken. It is hypothesized that

the breakage is caused by the production of oxygen from
manganous oxide (an intermediate produced from

colouring the glass) during reheating. Manganese

chemistry is notoriously complex and the authors have

managed to get their equation, Mnp,
–

2MnO +
0
2

wrong. It should read 2Mn
2

O
3
4 4MnO +

0
2
yielding half

the oxygen per molecule of manganous oxide originally
indicated. Simple gas expansion within the bubble on its

thin walls during reheating seems equally probable.

Another Corning article about Bernard Perrot’s (1619?-

1709) portrait plaques of

King Louis XIV is
particularly interesting.
These plaques are impressive

cast pieces some 36 cm tall.

Of nine known examples six

come from the same mould,

two of which are in Corning
and one in Toledo. It would
be interesting to compare

their chemical compositions.
One of them, auctioned by

Simon Cottle when at

Sotheby’s, is conjectured by

Simon to have been presented to the King of Siam.

A 20-page unillustrated article (in German) on Johann
Glauber, a well-documented alchemist who used glass as

an analytical tool, particularly for gold, would probably be

both interesting and informative if only I could read it. By

contrast, this is followed by two beautifully illustrated

articles. The first is on Zwischengold glass and the methods

of their manufacture; the second (in Italian) is on
polychrome Venetian enamels where the sources of the
decorations are traced to old prints.

A short article on murrhine ware and its relationship to

Derbyshire blue John is followed by yours truly on Zoude

and then one (in German) to do with beakers and another

(in Italian) on Salviati glass.

Then comes an article relating to American glass and the
Smithsonian Institution (founded in 1846 by Englishman,
James Smithson). Again, fully illustrated, it illustrates some

of their many glass treasures. Finally, we are given an

account of Frederick Carder’s visit to Germany, Bohemia

and Austria in 1902. It is based on Carder’s own notebook,
now in the Rakow Library. In places it is cryptic;

elsewhere, particularly on technological aspects, quite

detailed, such as on finishing the top of a wine glass and

making Tiffany glass by mixing coloured glasses on a table
and rolling them together. It is full of information on
glassmaking specifics such as gilding, smoke-free furnaces

and the absence of gaffer’s chairs.

Of the notes I pick out only an analysis of a Hedwig beaker
fragment from Brno (Czech Republic), relating its origin
primarily to Levant and Islamic countries in the 13
th

century. Six such beakers have now been analysed. Their
European distribution is attributed to returning Crusaders.

In spite of the frustrating foreign language problem this
volume offers a diversity of glass interest that will widen

the knowledge of any glass enthusiast.
Order it on the CMOG web site. *

The

famous

Byzantine bowl

with

enamel

decoration and
metal mounts in

the treasury of St.
Mark’s in Venice

comes under the

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GLASS CIRCLE NEWS No. 113, 2007

The Art of Faberge
by
John Booth

Quantum Publishing,2005.1SBN 1-84573-069-0

Size 33.5 x 24.5 cm, 192 pages, full colour, hardback with dust

jacket Price £30.00

The recent record sale of a Faberge egg has aroused a more

general interest in this master craftsman, or perhaps one

should say, entrepreneur. As with Tiffany much, if not all,
of his output was carried out by other workers. His

addiction to the most expensive materials meant that glass

seems mostly to have been beneath his consideration. As

well as eggs he was particularly noted for his flowers, more
decorative that realistic, standing in small containers of

water.
In fact, I learn that these containers are actually solid

blocks of cut rock crystal. The only possible glass I could

identify in this book is the modest tumbler opposite
although described as smoky quartz. It

is mounted on a solid gold foot.

Paintings of two other tumblers
embellished with garnitures of gold

and jewels are depicted. There was
nothing common coming from his

workshops. The main use of glass was

in the form of enamels. These were
used extensively in various ways,

cloisonné, champeleve and plique

jour, drawing on a palate of 144
different basic colours and worked to the highest standard
There was no shortage of customers. At its height the firm

employed some 500 workers and exported worldwide. This

is a coffee table book, replete with endless opulent

illustrations, over which to indulge your dreams. My

volume, incidentally, cost £9.99 in a remainder bookshop.

Glass Books for Children
A book is probably little more than a child’s stocking filler
nowadays but here are three on glass worthy of consideration.

First is
Story of Glass Colouring Book
by Peter F. Copeland

and John H. Martin (1982). Peter did the outline drawings and
John, recently deceased, who was deputy Director of The
Corning Museum of Glass, provided the text. Examples are

taken world wide and the book has some colour illustrations as

guidance. It is one of a long series of soft-cover volumes of
approx. A4 size that you might find in any Art shop. It is

available from Amazon for £4.65 but their web site says

delivery is 4-6 weeks.

Next we have
A Day in the Life of a Colonial Glassblower

L.J. Branse (2002) Powerkids Press, New York. It only has 24
..i

stand. As the illustration indicates, it consists of 12

the various activities that take place in an 18/19th
century glasshouse. The illustrations are mostly

from old prints that have been coloured.

A
German father and son partake in the various

activities. It does not spare the technical terms

which are explained in a glossary. It is said to be
for 8-12 years old but a parent might find it
illuminating on some aspects. Unexpectedly, it

includes a picture of a Ravenscroft decanter. It

would make a good book at bedtime if you wish
to indoctrinate your offspring into your own

41%

STORY OF GLASS

Coloring Book

4
Thew ‘ow. ant rarLng m

plau

particular hobby. Amazon sells
it for a massive

£20.13 but you can get a copy from The Corning

Museum’s Glassmarket for $12.95. Express postage

for this and the following book is $12.50.

In my view Corning’s
Innovations in Glass

(1999) is

by far the most interesting of these three books With

64 pages, 20.5×24.5 cm, soft covers, 23 topics on

windows, optics and vessels are presented as a series
of double spreads with concise explanations,

diagrams, pictures of the inventors and colour
examples. It is a mine of technical information simply

explained and beautifully presented. It might be said

to have an American bias but most of the important

European inventors are included. At $4.95 it is a
bargain that children of all ages will appreciate. As with
the above

pages (20×18.5 cm) but the covers are thick enough to use as a teapot

double spreads. They describe with a reasonable degree of accuracy

The
Glasshouse

On o fol morning in 1740, Karl Berger and

his 12,,reorold son Fritz left their home lo yo
to he glasshouse, a glass factory, where they
both waked. The glasshouse was neor the

ciy of Philadelphia in the cciony of
Pennsylvania. Karl was a gkisslolower, a
acitsmon who mode bodes, window glass,

jars, pitchers, and other objects by blowing or
Into lot gloss through a tube. His son Fritz
was an apprentice. Korl, his we Renato, and

Fritz had cane horn Germany to Pennsylvania

three years earlier.

volume it can be ordered via the CMOG web site. *

‘ MIRIAM

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GLASS CIRCLE NEWS No. 113, 2007

fieLDINgs
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Ltn

Report by Yvonne Wilkes*

Fine Art & Antiques. Stourbridge. Saturday 8th

September, 2007.

More of the late H. Jack Haden’s archival material was for

sale at this auction. Broadfield House Glass Museum

managed to acquire three of the more important items. Lot
459 contained a quantity of publicity photographs and

original catalogue illustrations. Together with printing
blocks illustrating glassware, all from various Stourbridge

glass houses, it went for £780 against a top estimate of

£800.
Lot 460 was an accumulation of Jack’s extensive research

including printed matter and documents about the design

and manufacture of glassware in the Stourbridge area. This

made £1400, (estimate £1000-£1500). The Museum also

acquired Lot 461 for £15,000 (the bottom of the estimate).
This very important collection was accumulated by Jack

over many years. The highlights (picture right) were the
register of the Stourbridge Government School of Art

1864-1874, a glass recipe book of Joseph Fleming, glass

manufacturer at the Platts, and a recipe book used at the

Dial Glass Works by Solomon Davis.

Lot 457,
Philip Pargeter trade catalogue, with cut and etched

tableglass, flower centres, candelabras etc.

The Museum made three other purchases earlier in the

sale. They paid £500 (£60 to £80) for a mid 19th century

sale catalogue for the Heath Glassworks and estate

including a large folding plan of the works. A group of

manuscripts relating to Messrs. Davis, Greathead & Green,
including a draft Partnership, Leases given by George

Robinson etc. This lot fetched £290 (£150 to £200). They
paid £580 (£150 to £180 ) for a small group of manuscript

and printed documents relating to the Coalbourne Hill
Glassworks. Items ranging from 1768 to 1920 included a
draft indenture with details of the premises and concerning

Joseph Webb, as well as a sale catalogues with plans of the

works.

A large part of the funds for the purchase came from The

V&A Purchase Grant Fund. A local benefactor, having

seen in the press that the archives might go abroad if the
money was not available, kindly donated two thousand

“Ail pictures courtesy of the auctioneers. Prices quoted are
hammerprices.
pounds. The short fall was made up by The Friends of

Broadfield House, The Friends of Dudley archives and
various other local history groups.
Several other items went elsewhere. Including Lot 456, a

19th century pen, pencil and ink working drawing by John

Northwood, illustrating a design for a baluster form vase

and cover with applied owl handles (picture below). The

design is illustrated in
John Northwood

by John Northwood

Jnr. along with four others with equally unusual handles
published by Mark and Moody in 1958. I wonder where the

other drawings are now?

Decades of Design, Stourbridge, 22nd Sepember 2007.
The Dale Collection of Stuart Enamelled Glass, which

had previously been exhibited at Broadfield House Glass

Museum as
Cocktails of Colours
from the middle of

February to the beginning
of July this year, was sold

(well a fair proportion of
it was) in the Art Deco

section of this sale. Amy

& Tom Dale had been
collecting the vintage

glassware for the last

twenty of their thirty

years together. When
Tom died in 2004, Amy

decided the collection

would be sold as a tribute
to him, with some of the
money raised going to the

British Heart Foundation
and the Birmingham’s

Children’s Heart Nurse
L

ot
456

Appeal.

Of the 61 lots only 18 sold, all within estimate or slightly

above. The lots that did well were either cut as well as

all•miwwwww:g4ir

–
GLASS CIRCLE NEWS No. 113, 2007

enamelled, or had the more dramatic Art Deco Designs,
introduced by Geoffrey Stuart from 1933. I liked the pair of
footed highball tumblers enamelled with galleons in full

sail. The pair made £70, slightly above estimate. A tumbler-
form cocktail shaker in the Diablo pattern with the devil in

red holding up a glass, together with four conical bowl

glasses each with a running devil in either red, blue, black

or green, made £470 (£300-£500). For more details of this
part of the sale see Henry Fox’s report below.

Two other glass items in this section of the sale that failed

to sell may be of interest to our members. A Clyne
Farqhuarson – John Walsh Walsh large clear cut crystal

barrel form vase in the Albany pattern with elliptical
lozenge cuts; these are interwoven with engraved wave

lines. With an engraved signature, height 24.5 cms. it failed

to reach £400.

Not to my taste was an Edvin Ohrstrom – Orrefors of tear
drop form. This heavily-cased piece had a clear crystal wall

over an internal patterned ground. A portrait panel was on

one side and a rectangular panel with dove on the other, and
a tonal graduated green to blue ground. It stood 19 cms high

with a fully engraved signature and numbered 147-f. It
failed to make the estimate of £2,000 to £3,000. *

More on Auctions and Sales by Henry Fox
*Fieldings, Stourbridge — 22” September
Decades of Design. As mentioned above by

Yvonne, this sale included the Dale collection of
1930s Stuart enamelled glass. The multiple lots of
floral-decorated glassware, which I find particularly
attractive, did not fare well and buyers were very

selective. An Art Deco design decanter and two
matching glasses (right) went for £380; a pair of

highball footed tumblers enamelled with galleons

(far right) made £70; a posy vase of flared trumpet
form enamelled with

a stylised floral
garland

within

patterned borders took

£100. The cocktail shaker

(left) and two matching

small glasses with the much

sought after design of an

engraved web and
enamelled spiders (With

only six legs they look
more like bed bugs, ed.)

made £250.

*Byrnes; Salney,
Salney, Chester — 29th September.

A pier glass mirror (picture opposite) resembling one

illustrated in
The Gentleman and Cabinet Makers Directory

(1754, reprinted 2005) and showing imaginative use of
French rococo and English orientalism, attracted the

telephone bidders as well as several present at the sale.
Despite the need for extensive restoration, this carved and

*All pictures courtesy of the auctioneers. Prices quoted are
hammerprices.
gilded Chippendale-framed mirror went to a London

dealer for the exceptional sum of £80,000.

*Doyle, New York — 10
th
October.

In total contrast to the previous entry was the severely

plain but nevertheless elegant and functional mirrored

wood break-front display cabinet by Syrie Maughan.
Syrie was a leading British interior decorator of the

The top lot, at £470 was a

tumbler-form cocktail

shaker decorated in the
Diablo pattern with an
enamelled devil in red

with fork and holding

aloft a symbolic drinking
glass, together with four

conical bowl, capstan

stem glasses, each

enamelled with a running

devil in red, blue, black

and green, respectively.

and finally …

Capturing Glass
It is probably only in the last

two decades that photographs
have been taken seriously as

works of Art, particularly by
collectors in the UK. Judging

by the prices obtained at a

Sothebys

sale,

12t

November, a glass collector
might be well advised to

consider augmenting his

collection with examples

taken from this sale. The
picture, below entitled
Jenaer

Glas,
by Albert Renger-

Patzach,
c.
1936, was not sold

and bought in against an
estimate of £25,000. The lot
pictured

above,

Distortion of a Glass

by Andre Kertesz,

1943 and described as

printed later
went for

£3500. This image,

quite clever at the
time, would be child’s
play with a computer

today.

These sales apparently

did not include the

negatives the where-

abouts of which, if

they still exist, is not
known. Further copies

could possibly be printed at a later date.

Web Site check-in:-
www.gcnews.co.uk

Issue No. 113, Password:- mould6

GLASS CIRCLE NEWS No. 113, 2007

1920s and 1930s, and also wife of
Somerset Maughan, the author. This lot

(picture left) was also subject to strong
bidding and finally made US$ 30,000

(£15,500). This was double the top

estimate although very good value if the
bidder had been British taking

advantage of our favourable exchange

rate.

*Dreweatt Neate & Neales, Nottingham
— 25t
h
October.

A colour twist ale glass (picture right),
the plain straight stem with a multi-

spiral opaque white corkscrew entwined
by a pair of red spirals. The bowl is

engraved with a traditional pattern of
hops and barley. It sold for £3200. *

Around the Fairs –
Olympia

At this top quality Fair, the last in 2007, it is the specialist

glass dealers who command our particular attention. Here

are a few personal impressions from a fine display of glass.
Delomosne, as one has come to expect, had a good

showing of C. 18t
h

drinking glasses, including three

attractive Beilby enamelled examples. An early turnover
rim bowl on a bobbin section above a moulded conical

stem was another of their pieces.
Mark West, as well as C.18t
h
drinking glasses and C.20

glass including Art Deco styles, featured two wine bottles.
One was a typical sealed college bottle, the other a most

unusual triangular shape with a Masonic motif seal.
Andrew Lineham, after a period of absence, had returned

to exhibit a colourful array ranging from Webb and Stuart
cameo scent bottles and amberina to a glass made by Webb

and engraved and signed by William Fritche.
Carol Ketley was specialising in Victorian glassware

alongside large period mirrors in gilt frames, supplied, I

was told, by her daughter. Mirrors from the C.19th and

earlier are now commanding high prices reflecting their

true value at the time they were made.
Jeanette Hayhurst also had a fine showing of C.18th

glasses to excite the collector. Of her later glass I
particularly liked a Regency ship’s decanter with cut neck

and body; also a fascinating Webb table centre piece, with
its 16 parts forming posy holders and candle holders.
Brian Watson also had fine display with yet more C.18th

drinking glasses. This fair really does bring out some of the
finest glass of this period to tempt collectors.
My most exciting discovery, though, was the stand of Jan

Afford, a specialist in Lalique glassware. I cannot recall
such a colourful display of imposing Lalique glass –

ranging from red, blue, green, and yellow-cased to the

familiar clear and frosted examples. Several car mascots

were displayed as well as coloured
pin trays
(formerly, I

suspect, used as ash trays?) with their central animal

figures. I was particularly excited to see and handle a

Lalique Langoustine paperweight, and a larger and heavier

crab paperweight. (See pictures on www.afforddecarts.com)

Overall, it was an instructive and worthwhile experience

with the gallery much more comfortable than the crowded
ground floor. What will 2008 bring for us glass collectors?

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Glass Circle News_No.113, Dec 2007

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