c c
t
o-Th
T
13
S
NE14/
•••
n
ftryleaorft..
n
••••
nn
•………4).woome
n
EDITORS
David Watts
27 Raydean Road
Barnet, Her
EN51AN
Gabriella Gros
9 Harman Drive
London, N.W2. 2EB
No. 29,
July 1984
ART OF GLASS
Listeners to London’s LBC commercial radio may have heard an advertisement for an
exhibition of Czechoslovakian glass called ‘Art of Glass’ and organized by
Glassexport Co. of Czechoslovakia and Selfridges of Oxford St. where the
exhibition
was
held from May 9 e June 16. The promotion was mainly commercial
with alt but a few 18th and 19th century museum pieces being for sale. There
was
no
catalogue:and although a leaflet promised information on history, design
and mancifecture this was limited to a demonstration of wheel engraving,
commercial posters, a rather uninformative video and a few words about some of
the firms involved. ‘
The glassware itself ranged from pedestrian goblets to very fine pieces indeed
that revealed both artistry and practical skills of the highest order.
Chandeliers ranged from £150-£49 000, the latter being for what was said to be
the largest chandelier ever imported into the country. By my estimation it was
9
feet high by 7 feet wide and in Regency cascade style with 102 lights,
It
took a week to install and weighed about 2cwt; as a presteige centrepiece it had
already” attracted several potential customers.
Back at ground level Chribeka estd. in 1414 and claiming to be the oldest
glasshouse still working – showed a range of heavy vases and bowls of clear
crystal shaded inside in various bright colours and hand wrought into spiky
shapes that could have been inspired by marine larvae. These were good value
for around £10. Near by the Navy Bor glassworks showed traditional. cut overlay
pieces, some with lustres and hand-painted to a high standard; also, goblets and
vases gilt and flower enamelled, some in such high relief that five firings were
required. On one vase, about two feet high, this was a masterly technical
achievement.
Fine cutting, known as Podybrody lace-cut crystal, consisting mainly of columns
of Brunswick-type Mars all over the vessel, was a style perfected in 1929 by L.
Prostrednik.
It is, not surprisingly, expensive and if executed in this country
the cost would be prohibitive.
An impressive display of special pieces of very
large size and up to 2cm thick gave the cutters free range to show their skills
with deep cutting, the designs blending stars with natural motifs. The best
pieces commanded £2000.
Many other techniques were on show including the Czech speciality, Egermann glass
olive green and ruby stained vases and bowls with traditional through-engraved
decoration.
Another was the Hlava collection of double overlay vases, amber on
white with striking patterns of silver foil inclusions. More traditional were
Lalique-style frosted ornaments rangeing from a factory quality group of sparrows
(cheep! at the price) to studio creations of naturalistic leaf ornaments in
muted reds, purples, greens and browns at £360 each and, a personal fevoritc, an
almost life-sized bust of a child with head held pensively in hand for 11950.
The expression seemed to sum up the wonderment produced by this combination of
-2-
creativity and technology.
The art glass really deserved a review of
its own and, indeed, the exhibition showed that the best of
Czechoslovakian glass, like that from Murano mentioned in the last GC
News, is all too rarely seen in this country.
D.C.W.
•
n
•••
n
•••
n
•1.•
BOOK REVIEWS
EMILE GALL E – DREAMS INTO GLASS
The paperback catalogues of the Corning Museum are becoming a byword
for value and quality,
This voluale, if anything, sets a new high
standard.
With 192 pages. and 121 truly superb colour plates it
literally takes the lid off Emile Gall and shows exactly what made
him tick and why nowadays his work is so revered. After an
introductory bibliography the main section of the book provides a
lucid analysis of each exhibit supported by general views, detailed
close-up pictures and other relevant material. Then follows a brief
“Commentary” by Tom Buechner and an invaluable English translation of
Ga116’s notes on glass production submitted to the Jury of the Paris
Universal Exposition of 1839. These notes reveal the vast scope and
depth of the research required “…no fewer than a hundred
preparations (of colour) and this after much experimentation”;
“bubbles and lustres”; “superficial colorations, tints, reflections,
singeings and metallizations or deoxidations
“; imitations of hard
stones..hyalith..amber..jades..”; “enamelling” and with every form of
engraving and etching the exposition of techniques employed is almost
endless. The bibliography includes reference to contributions from
well-known members of the Circle.
Bill Warmus, the author, is to be complimented on an outstanding
production which will surely become essential reading for every
connoisseur of glass. At $25 + $2.25 PO (overseas) from the Sales
Dept. of the Museum it must represent the best buy of 1984.
Footnote: We learn with regret that because of the high cost the
exhibition is not scheduled to come to Europe.
READINGS IN GLASS HISTORY No.17 The Proto Sidonian Glassmakers and
Potters
This volume by Anita. Engel Editor of the Series, with 104 pages and
over 100 b & w illustrations marks the 10th year of publication.
It
opens up new avenues of.research by exploring’the contribution of the
potters who made the clay moulds used by the 1st century Sidonian
glassmakers to impart the elaborate decorations and inscriptions on
their vessels.
These are suggested to form part of a wider craft
development, taking place over the preceding 1000 years and begun in
the Near East in the 1st millenium B.C., with the decorative motifs
reflecting prevailing religious beliefs. The illustrations provide
surprising evidence of the continuity of these beliefs into the
Western world.
The second.. topic in this volume concerns a new interpretation of a
mysterious layer of glass, covering some 2 sq. metres, found at a 12th
century B.C. iron foundry in Galillee.
The volume costs $17 inc. P.+P; send to Phoenix Publications,
Jerusalem, PO Box 8190, Jerusalem, Israel.
-3-
Death of pr
–
Shialagh Murray
Well
–
known and much loved by many GC members, .Sheilagh Murray died earlier this
year after a long illness.
Her many years as Director of the Northern Region
National Blood Transfusion Service in Newcastle, which She herself founded, gave
her ample opportunity to research and collect local glass.
Press moulded’ and
coloured glass was her particular interest and she contributed the first
quantitative study of uranium in glass by measurement of its radioactive emission.
The highly original and personal approach’of her book “The Peacock and the
Lions”, published in 1982, will stand as a
.
permanent memorial to her memory for
all lovers of old glass.
REPORTS OF MEETINGS
THE GLASS CARAFE By Mrs Jennifer Frost
This paper was substantially written by the lecturer’s late husband and completed
by the lecturer
and her son,
In spite of the present day lack of interest in
the carafe as a collectable item in its own right it has a respectable history
going back to at least the beginning of the 18th century. A carafe is defined as
a short globular bottle with wide.neck and no stopper particularly used for
serving water.
They were also known as ‘water crafts’ and later variously
advertised as carafes, carraffs and carrosts.
Due to a lack of illustrations
.early carafes are difficult to date; one appears in the Crieur du Verrier and
another features in Maydwell’s well known Trade Card.
Among the
–
earliest
advertisements is Ravenscroft’s ‘ribbed bottles all over nipt diamond wares’ in
various sizes but these might have been used for any appropriate.purpose.
By the
second half of the 18th. century carafes featured regularly in advertisements and a
number of examples were given.
On the continent in particular, their use in
cafes led to their being featured in contemporary paintings.
By the 19th century highly decorated versions, sometimes associated with Ansley
Pellatt,
featured a diversity of cutting — pillar fluting and diamonds being
common.
The decoration may have served to indicate the level for a particular
measure.
By mid-19th century the matching carafe and tumbler had emerged; one
pair is illustrated in the 1851 Art journal and the V & A has a pair similar to
those exhibited in the 1862 Exhibition.
There are manypictures of. later 19th century carafes often with. characteristic
engraving.
Naturalistic ferns, associated with’J.G. Green, and the fruiting vine
were popular motifs. John Ford of Edinburgh produced heavy globular
pillar-fluted.. carafes with short necks in a variety of sizes which may have also
served as measures, Mould-blown carafes date ft= the late 1840s and often
incorporated decorative features. The use of printies stems from the late 18th
century and survived through to the 20th century, often being accompanied by a
star-cut base.
Variation in shape also occurred from the shaft and globe to,the
elegant oinochoe style and showed both Egyptian and Islamic influence.
The
bedside water ‘carafe and up’, thinly blown, was a product of the late 19th
century after which the robust character of the carafe was largely lost.
The lecture, ‘profusely illUstrated with slides, was held at the Artworkera Guild
on March 20th, 1984, by the kind invitation of Miss Heckler, Miss ‘Sampson and Mr
Savage.
D.C.W.
OLD GLASSMAKING TECHNIQUES. By Ray Flavel
As befits a professional teacher this lecture was run as a seminar with continuous
interchange of•ideas from an enthralled audience. The topic was honed down to
the creation of enamel twists (filligree canes) and air twists and the way in
which they have been used over the centuries.
The typical 18th century knopped
-4-
twist required expertise of the highest order because it was very difficult to
form the knop without losing the rhythm of the twist.
The method of creating cane by marvering together a series of hot glass overlays
and then drawing and twisting was described. The use of such cane goes back to
the Roman period (l-4 A.D.) when variously coloured thin canes were used to build
up mosaic pictures.
An unresolved problem, for which no suggestions were
forthcoming, was the way in which incredibly thin transverse slices of the
finished mosaic were obtained for use as embellishments elsewhere. A further
problem concerned the manufacture of mosaic bowls. For these bowls short lengths
of cane, sometimes interspersed with a plain glass matrix, were used.
Some
appear to be made by packing into a curved mould of plaster or clay but distortion
of the canes towards the rim. of the bowl has led to the suggestion that slumping a
preformed flat plate of mosaic glass over a former might rather have been used.
The consensus was, however, that this would inevitably produce handkerchief-like
folds; some form of double hot working before the final cold grinding and
polishing seemed inescapable. A further exploitation of the mosaic idea was Agry
beads obtained by pressing the glass into a dip mould and using a rotating steel
oven for the final rounding process.
The lecturer Chen went on to consider the various Venetian techniques for
incorporating cane into vessels. The main techniques were to pick up canes, onto
a gather of hot glass, either pre-arranged on the marver or distributed in a dip
mould. Once fused and sealed at the end the whole could be worked on the
blowpipe in the normal
way.
A bubble, collapsed by spinning, could produce ‘vetro
a reticello’ entrapping small air bubbles between the crossed threads.
An
alternative procedure in which one hot globe was introduced in exact register
inside another opened globe was technically possible but demanded exceptional
skill.
Turning to the 18th century twists in English glasses the alternative methods of
using preformed lengths of twisted cane or drawing from a hot carrot (short thick
cane) were compared. He recalled an old Stourbridge worker, Sid Baker, who made
the carrot in the morning ready for use later in the day. For air twists,
introducing air bubbles into a paraison by means of a spiked reel before drawing
and twisting also posed problems due to the change in temperature and viscosity
produced locally in the glass. One of the last masters of this technique is Mr
Wilkinson from Whitefriars who sometimes works at the London Glasshouse.
Attention was briefly turned to the exploitation of cane in contemporary pieces
and the way it could be used in the manner of making a pottery vessel from clay
sausages.
As well as slides a number of samples from the Whitefriars factory, modern pieces
and a Victorian ‘gadget’ were shown for the interest of members. The meeting was
held at the Westminster Hospital on 15th May, 1984, by courtesy of
Dr
Kersley and
at the kind invitation of Mr Ffoulkes, Mr and Mrs Charleston and Mr and Mrs Udall.
D
.C,W.
GLASSMAKING IN KING’S LYNN By Elizabeth James
The true origin of the so-called 18th century Lynn glasses, characterized by a
series of horizontal grooves tooled round the bowl, has always been shrouded in
mystery. The original attribution of these “corrugated bowls” seems to come from
Albert Hartshorne’s ‘Old English Glasses’ in 1897. The problem is that the
physical remains of a glasshouse has never been found in Lynn nor is there any
vessel whose pedigree can be traced there with certainty. And yet there is more
than enough tantalizing evidence to suggest that this is not just a mere
hypothesis.
The first evidence for a glasshouse at Lynn comes from a probable association of
Sir Robert Mansell, who had been M.P. for Lynn and was reorganizing the glass
industry at the time
(1649/50),
with Israeli Harrison, Glassmaker, who became a
5-
freeman of the borough.
By 1696 Jackson and Straw, who ran an important
glasshouse at Faulkon Stairs, Southwark (in London), had clear connect
–
ions with
flint and bottle houses in Lynn. Both Lynn works were in financial
difficulties as a result of the newly introduced (1695) Excise Act.
One
glasshouse, conveniently located by the Gaywood river, may be identified on the
“Groundplat of King’s Lynti’,1680, by Henry Bell.
It is shown as a small
square building.
A second factory,,not shown in 1680, appears on Bell’s ‘View
from the West’, 1710, as an elegant building with a dome. This factory is
also shown on Raistrick’s map of 1725 by which time-the first had. gone.
Both
sites are now built over.
By this time, also, the domed building had become a
Presbyterian chapel and in 1726 a new glasshouse was founded nearby to which
further references occur in 1739 and 1747 when it probably closed down, again
as a result of the new (1745) Excise Act. Here the documentary evidence fades
as the next large scale map of Lynn was not made until 1830.
The actual source of the Lynn sand is no less problematical as the
present day
large scale workings
produce sand of
bottle-making quality
only and
–
the nearby
Wedgewood Class factory imports sand from the continent. The history is
further complicated by the 18th century production in this area of sand for
could•-making.
Nevertheless, there is evidence for isolated pockets of
pure
sand and, an alternative source, the large quantities of sand
carried into the
harbour by the river Ouse which would be well-washed in the process and so help
remove iron
impurities.
Glasswort.
(samphire) grows in plenty on the Lynn
coast and would have been
a readily
available source of soda (for bottle making
but not flint crystal).
Anecdotal stories further support the existence of functioning glasshouses in
Lynn
and one rummer in the museum is said to have been passed down from the
Gaywood river glasshouse. Unfortunately, on
style, it is at least a century
too late. Other typical Lynn glasses and an
engraved tankard of 1771
were
illustrated from the Museum of Social
–
History in King’s Lynn and there are
further collections at the Norwich Castle Museum and Gt. Yarmouth Museum.
A 4-page well-illustrated brochure reviewing
the whole problem of the King’s
Lynn glass industry may be had from the
author who is
Deputy Curator, King’s
Lynn Museums. Send 20p and an A4 SAE.
The meeting was held at the Artworkers Guild on 21st June, 1984; the hosts were
Mrs Flanaghan, Professor Lelievre and Mr Stone.
WELL I NEVER!
Coating for colour
Crystal paperweights giving attractive
colour effects are one of the latest
products of modern technology. Made by Hadrian Crafts Ltd., of Hexham,
Northumberland, the paperweights are multifaceted solid spheres of Austrian
crystal and come in various sizes. One flat face has a thin reflecting film
of metal deposited on it by a special vacuum process. This, in conjunction
with the precision-cut facets, produces internal optical interferences in the
light waves undergoing multiple internal reflections. The visual result is a
range of pure spectral colours that changes with the viewing angle. The
British-made vacuum coating equipment has a wide variety of uses including the
preparation of
specimens for the electron microscope.
Queen’s comfort
Milevac Scientific Glass of Halstead, Essex, has been awarded the Royal Warrant
of Appointment as suppliers of vacuum flasks to Her Majesty the Queen.
-6-
Your daily ‘pinta’
An improved yersion of the “pintie” milk bottle, launched by the CWS earlier
this year, has led to “The Good Taste of Glass Awards” being presented by
Oliver Normandale, director of the Glass Manufacturers Federation.. The new
shape, which fits existing bottling machinery,.is said to wash more easily and
give• a better cream line and so make the pinta more attractive.
Use, so far,
is mostly in the Eastern, Region of the CoOp and the London CoOp pinta still
comes in traditional bottles made by _United GlasS.
CROSBY BOOKS
This firm offers a useful list of new, secondhand and rare books on glass
collecting at reasonable prices. their new list is now available and interested
members should write to them at Orlingbury House, Forest Row, Sussex, RH18 5kA,
England.