The Glass Cone_No.101 Winter 2013

The Glass Cone

ISSUE NO.101

WINTER 2013

Contents

1 Japonisme
4 Whitefriars ‘Fakes’ – part 1

6 Antonio Salviati’s Trade Card and Venice
7 Latest News from the Paperweight World

9 Cockerel Cocktail Glasses – British makers
12 The Perfumed Valley

14 The Auction of the Edward V. Phillips Glass Collection

16 Fieldings Auction – October 2012: Decades of Design
& Clarice Cliff

17 Harry Clarke at Ashdown Park

18 Members pages
21 What’s on

Chairman’s message

The Glass Cone

THE MAGAZINE OF THE GLASS ASSOCIATION

Issue No: 101— Winter 2013

Editorial Board
Editorial Co-ordinator
(The Glass Cone):

Gaby Marcon [email protected]

Charles Hajdamach, Mark Hill, Brian Clarke, Yvonne

Cocking, Bob Wilcock

Address for
Glass Cone
correspondence

E-mail [email protected]
or mail to Glass Cone, 7 The Avenue, London N3 2LB

E-mail news & events to [email protected]

Articles and news items are welcome at any time,

but please bear in mind the copy dates if you have

an event you would like to be publicised.

The opinions expressed in the
Glass Cone

are those

of the contributors. The aim of the Editorial Board is to
cover a range of interests, ideas and opinions, which

are not necessarily their own. The decision of the

Editorial Board is final.

Copy dates
Spring: 21 February — publication 1 May

Summer: 21 May — publication 1 August

Autumn: 21 August — publication 1 November

Winter: 7 November — publication 1 February

Advertising rates
Full page £200; Half page £140; Third page £100; Sixth

page £70; Twelfth page £55. For inside back cover and

back cover, prices are on application.

Discounted rates for GA members

Please contact [email protected]

The Glass Association 2013. All rights reserved

Design by Malcolm Preskett

Printed in the UK by Micropress Printers Ltd

www.micropress.co.uk

Published by The Glass Association

ISSN No.0265 9654

The Glass Association

Registered as a Charity No.326602
Website:
www.glassassociation.org.uk

Life President:
Charles Hajdamach

charleshajdamach(Obtinternet.com

Chairman:
Dr Brian Clarke:

[email protected]

Hon. Secretary:
Judith Gower

[email protected]

Membership Secretary
Pauline Wimpory,150 Braemar Road, Sutton Coldfield,

West Midlands, B73 6LZ

[email protected]

Committee
Paul Bishop (vice-Chairman); Jackie Fairburn;

Christina Glover; Alan Gower; Judith Gower; Mark Hill;

Jordana Learmonth; Gaby Marcon; Karl Moodie;

Rebecca Wallis; Maurice Wimpory (Treasurer)

Membership and subscriptions
Individual: £25. Joint: £35. Student with NUS card: £15.

Institutions: UK £45. Overseas £35. Overseas

Institutions £55. Life: £350. Subscriptions due on

1 August (if joining May—July, subscriptions valid until

31 July, the following year)

Cover illustrations:
Front:
A Salviati goblet in opalescent glass,

270mm in height, circa 1860.

Back:
A large floating ball in dichroic glass, by artist

Jon Lewis of Orbic Glass at Parndon Mill in Essex.
THE New Year has begun with a cold

and frosty January, yet despite the
inclement weather and the uncertainties
of life around us, we can look forward to

the year ahead – following our passions
in the world of glass, appreciating the
objects themselves, gathering together

information to generate greater under-
standing, but most of all, maintaining old

and forming new friendships.
To this end, and as announced in
Glass

Cone 100,
our December committee meeting

reviewed the possible ways forward with
our friends in the Glass Circle (GC). Most

GA members who have contacted us
have been in favour of the move to join

forces, though some cautioned us to
proceed gradually. A date has now been set

for a joint meeting and we will keep you
informed of its outcome; please get in touch
if you have ideas which you would like us to

consider.
All of your contributions to the
Glass Cone

are really appreciated – within its pages
the editorial team endeavour to reflect the
interests of the whole glass community.

In this issue, we have articles, enquiries and

items of interest, either written by or sent

in to the editors by collectors, dealers,
glassmakers, museum curators and
auctioneers – regarding glass ancient

and modern. With this inclusive approach

towards the content of the
Glass Cone
and

also to the membership of the GA, we hope
to foster a conversation between all

members of the glass world. I believe this
‘human conversation’ to be most important

for the future. To further this aim of

inclusion – we are asking all of you who

would enjoy writing about ‘glass’ – its

history, collecting, making – whichever angle
intrigues you, to contribute. We are also
asking for more information and reports

from auction houses on important glass
sales and would be happy to receive more
articles from specialist glass dealers and

curators embarking on new displays

and exhibitions. If you ‘fit the bill’ – tell us

about yourselves.
Finally, a sad note from Isle of Wight

Glass which has recently been placed in
liquidation. Founded in 1973 by Michael

Harris and his wife Elizabeth, glassmaking
was continued after Michael’s death in 1994

by his sons Timothy and Jonathan. After
Jonathan left the 1.0.W in 1999, Timothy

remained as the master glassmaker and

has run the company with the twin goals of

design and affordability. We wish all in the

firm well for the future.

THE GLASS CONE NO.101 WINTER 2013

Fig.2: Gilding

attributed to Jules

Barbe. The sails of

the boats show

strong similarities

to the sails of
vessels in prints

by Hiroshige.
The metal of the

body contains

Uranium.

Japonisme

Clive Manison

N 1991 the Barbican Art Gallery

hosted an exhibition entitled ‘Japan
and Britain: an aesthetic dialogue,

1850-1930’ devoted to an examin-
ation of the far-reaching effects that

the art and crafts of Japan had upon

arts – in particular the fine arts – of

Britain. Of the 400 or so exhibits no
more than five were glass and, of

these, four were pieces of cut glass

in a distinctly Anglo-Irish style from

the short-lived Satsuma glassworks.

The fifth (cat.193), a claret jug with
sterling silver mount in a classically

European style, had a glass body
engraved in the ‘Aesthetic’ taste. In

an exhibition concentrating mainly on
the fine arts, and in particular cross-
cultural influences, it is hardly surprising

that so little glass was on display.
I had long been interested in the

culture, language and art of Japan,
and had begun seriously collecting
glass some time before I became

interested in the influence of Japan-

ese art on the decoration of glass.

It was the chance observation of the
phrase
Matsu-no-Kee
(spelled, as

I recall Mat-su-no-ke) applied to
a piece of glass that attracted my
attention, for I recognised at once a

Japanese phrase, yet a phrase I had

never heard. This led me to research

not only the history of the design, but
also to investigate the wider influence
of Japanese art on the decorative

arts in the latter part of the 19th
century. The effect upon artists and

craftsmen of the prints, ceramics
and lacquer imported into Europe in

increasing quantities, after Japan
was opened to foreign trade, has
been well documented – the effect of

European art imported through the
Dutch trading post in Nagasaki Bay
rather less so. However, it became

apparent to me that there was a

good deal of glass coming on the

market that displayed clear evidence
Fig.1: The base of an atomiser scent bottle

by G. Raspillon

Fig.3: A vase embodyingboth gilding,

and applied glass decoration. Probably

Stevens & Williams or Thomas Webb.

A similar piece was exhibited in the

Glass Circle’s exhibition From Palace to

Parlour -A Celebration of 19th-century

British Glass’ at the Wallace Collection

21 Aug. – 26 Oct 2003 (no.36)

of Japanese influence – and I began

to add some pieces to my collection.
The current exhibition at Broadfield

House is an attempt to illustrate the

wide-ranging influences upon European

glass that resulted from the opening

to commerce of the Japanese archi-
pelago, following a visit of American
warships to Tokyo Bay under the

command of Admiral Perry. Much of

the glass is British, and much of that

from Stourbridge, but Bohemian and
other makers are represented. It is

often extremely difficult to decide
where a particular piece was made,

as many are unmarked.
The pieces on display come from a

collection built up in a relatively short

time. There are a number of pieces
of
Matsu-no-Kee
and a couple of

pieces of glass by Stevens and
Williams (S&W) that show develop-

ments of that technique by the firm.
One such piece, ‘Crystal Cameo’,
shows some influence of Japanese

motifs in the decoration, and another
cameo glass by Thomas Webb shows
strong similarities to the gilded ‘Peach

Blow’ glass that company produced.
Other pieces of cameo glass are
French, and show the great influence
of Japanese prints on French glass-

makers in the late 19th century. Of
particular interest is the small bottle,

almost certainly intended as the base
of a scent atomiser, bearing the
signature `G Raspillon’
(fig.1).
I have

been unable to find anything about

this artist, other than a reference and
illustration of another piece by him

in Ray & Lee Grover’s
Carved and

Decorated European Art Glass,
1970,

Charles Tuttle, Rutland, Vermont.
The largest single group of glass-

ware is of pieces that have an opal
body with a coloured casing, normally
decorated with gilding
(figs 2, 3).

Here

the Japanese influence can be seen

in the asymmetric arrangement of a
branch. Where a pair of vases has

similar decoration, the arrange-

ment of the branches is often
subtly different. The gilded
decoration is similar to that

found on Japanese lacquer

Fig.4: An unusual piece of black

glass, the decoration is perhaps more
‘Chinoiserie’ than Japonisme: A piece

with very similar decoration on a
peach-blow’ body in the Broadfield

House collection is attributed to Harrach.

THE GLASS CONE NO.101
WINTER 2013

1

Fig.ZA similar piece,

illustrated in Manley,

‘Decorative Victorian

Glass’ is attributed to

Stevens &Williams.

The metal of the
body again
contains

Uranium.

Fig.5: Probably

Bohemian.
The metal of the

body contains

Uranium.

Fig.6: Similar view of the glass fig.3.
The uranium fluorescing under UV light.

Fig.8: Hiroshige
print showing the

form of sail on

the vase in fig.2.

Fig.9 (below):

A Piece of Matsu-
no-Kee’ with the

identifyingDesign

Registration
number,

Rd= 15353,

on the base.
ware, though only one piece of

glass has a black body
(fig.4).

A surprisingly large number of the
pieces of glass on display are made

from a metal that contains uranium

(figs 5, 6).
A few pieces have attri-

butions to particular workshops,

such as the small cream vase
decorated with gilding and pink

enamelled flowers
(fig.7),
attributed

to the workshop of Pierre Erard on

the basis of an attribution of a similar

piece illustrated in Cyril Manley’s

Decorative Victorian Glass.
Another

piece, the vase in
fig.2
is attributed

on technical grounds to the Barbe
workshop
(fig.8).
A second group of pieces use

applied surface decoration. Several
of these are in the style known as

Matsu-no-Kee,
and pieces sub-

sequently made by S&W use the

techniques that had been developed

for this registered design
(fig.9).
One

of the
Matsu-no-Kee
pieces is

identical, other than in the colour of

the body, to a piece in the Victoria &

Albert Museum. A Japanese print,

appropriately illustrating chapter 18
of
The Tale of Genji — The Wind in

the Pine Trees
has been used to

demonstrate the influences that

2
Fig.10: A drawing of a small vase from a

Thomas Webb Pattern Book, entry 15478.

Fig.11: A vase identified as that shown in
flg.10. The metal contains Uranium.

THE GLASS CONE NO.101 WINTER 2013

must have been acting on John

Northwood. In one case
(figs 10, 11),

identification of the design in the

Thomas Webb pattern books has
confirmed the maker, and allowed

the design to be dated to 1880-81 –

four years before
Matsu-no-Kee
was

registered as a design
The Japanese influence on cameo

glass largely passed by Stourbridge,

although a few pieces of local origin
with clear Japanese influences can

be seen in the Cameo Room next
door. The pieces on display are

nearly all French
(figs 12, 13),
and the

Japanese influence on the landscape

cameo pieces can be seen in the way

that views are framed with strongly

coloured foregrounds. Other cameo

pieces show influences similar to

those of the gilded pieces in that

the decoration is asymmetric, and

modelled on that of lacquer ware.
Pressed glass is represented by

one piece: a small posy basket from

the George Davison factory. The
Japanese elements in the decoration
were recognised by Jenny Thompson

in her book
The Identification of

English Pressed Glass
(published by

the author in 1989, and now sadly
out of print) and the manufacturer

identified by the two registered design

numbers that can be found in the
segments of the pattern. The handle,
which is in a rustic style, was pro-

tected by a third design registration. It
was re-used in other pieces where

any Japanese contribution to the
design is scarcely apparent.
Fig.I2:Vase by

Daum, in a brown

ground with a

gold motif
Metal mounted.

Fig.13: A slender
necked, landscape

cameo vase by
the French maker

deVez.
The manner in
which the

landscape is

shown has strong

similarities with

prints by Hiroshige,

particularly in the

way that areas of

strong colour

overlie areas of

pastel shading

to emphasise the

illusion of depth

and perspective.

Fig14: Carp

‘aspiring’ to swim

off the vase.

Fig.15: According
to a Japanese

proverb, cranes are

supposed to live
for 1,000 years.

Figs 2, 4, 5,
courtesy of Chris

Reynolds
The Japanese influence

is persistent even today,

though not always immediately

apparent. It can be seen in the
work of lestyn Davies and

Jonathan Harris, both of whom

are represented. The lestyn

Davies piece is an early work,

and was actually made in the
studio at Broadfield House.

The Jonathan Harris pieces
show motifs frequently

found in Japanese art –
the carp and the crane

(figs 14, 15).
The crane is

a symbol of longevity,

and the carp a symbol
of aspiration. In Japan,

on 5 May, the carp is also

flown as a paper streamer
above every house where

there is a male child.
This exhibition is particu-

larly apposite this year, for
2013 marks the 150th anni-

versary of the Richardson incident.

On 14 September 1862, a party of

four British citizens (three men and
one woman) were riding towards
Kawasaki along the Tokaido — the main
road linking Kyoto and Edo (the

modern Tokyo). They refused to
dismount for the entourage of the

regent of the Daimyo (feudal lord)
of the province of Satsuma, as
Japanese people would normally
do (the samurai escort had the right

to strike anyone who showed dis-

respect). Under the Anglo-Japanese

friendship treaty, British nationals had
the benefit of extra-territorial rights,

and Charles Richardson, who was
leading the party and who rode too
close to the procession, took the

view that this meant he was not

obliged to give way to the

procession. The samurai escort
struck out with their swords, and

the three men were injured –
Richardson fatally. The British
government demanded monet-
ary reparations, together with

the arrest, trial, and execution
of the perpetrators. The

Satsuma government refused,
and the following year the
British government sent a
gunboat to Kagoshima (the
Satsuma provincial capital),
which seized a number of

Satsuma boats as hostage

to enforce the payment

of reparations. A Satsuma

shore battery opened fire

without warning, and the

retaliatory bombardment

by the British squadron

destroyed, among other places,

the glassworks which the Daimyo

had set up a few years previously,
and which had begun producing high

quality cut glass in the Anglo-Irish

style. Perhaps this exhibition can go a

little way to acknowledge the debt
which glassmakers in the West owe

to the culture and craftsmen

of Japan.

THE GLASS CONE NO.101 WINTER 2013

3

Whitefriars ‘Fakes’

‘M sure that most of you reading this will

be more than familiar with the English
glass producer Whitefriars however, here

is a brief history.

James Powell & Sons (Whitefriars) has

been Britain’s longest running glasshouse.

In 1834, James Powell, a wine merchant,
purchased the original Fleet Street site.

In 1919 the company changed its name

from James Powell & Sons to James Powell
(Whitefriars) Ltd and, after purchasing
their new factory in Wealdstone in 1923,

they were usually referred to
as ‘Whitefriars’. In 1963 the

company was renamed Whitefriars
Glass Ltd. The glassworks closed

in 1980.
These articles (part 2 will be

featured in
Glass Cone 102)
cover

the ‘textured’ range of vases and

their copies. The vases were
originally designed by Geoffrey

Baxter who joined Whitefriars in
1954 and designed the textured
ranges from the mid 1960s to the

mid 1970s.

Fakes

FOR ease of writing I have decided

to use the word ‘fake’ to describe

all copies and reproductions of

Whitefriars vases made after the
factory closed, whether they were
or were not made in the original

moulds. The word ‘fake’ is often
used as a term relating to
‘deliberately deceive’, but here I’m not

casting aspersions but simply using the
word to mean ‘non-Whitefriars’.

Introduction

I have a great love and a good knowledge
of Whitefriars and Powell glassware. I collect

various types of Whitefriars glass mainly

from the 1960-70s but none of the textured

ranges. I particularly like Boffo and Ray

Annenberg pieces, especially animals and
paperweights.
I have had a keen interest in glass for

about 12 years, having begun by collecting
Georgian and Victorian drinking glasses.

I was introduced to this by an old professor
PART 1

Wolfie Rayner

who I visit regularly. He has a substantial

collection of Georgian drinking glasses
which has been gathered over a period of

more than 30 years; his encouragement
started me on my own collecting.
My interest in Whitefriars started about

2005 when I became gripped by the superb

variations in Powell/Whitefriars glass and the

amount of knowledge available online and in
book form. I joined the ‘whitefriars.com’ site

in 2007 and since then have made many
good friends in the Whitefriars community

including ex-workers, collectors and dealers.

I have helped run the whitefriars.com
collectors’ table at the Cambridge Glass Fair

for some years, where on several occasions

I have displayed the fakes.
Whitefriars’ fakes have been my special

study ever since the first non-Whitefriars

mould examples appeared in 2007. I have
been collating information on them for

the past five years, but as usual the people
who make these keep their cards close to

their chest.

Moulds

THE fakes, as with the original Whitefriars

vases, were all blown into moulds. 99% of
all fakes are not made in original Whitefriars

moulds but have had moulds made to
replicate the original and in some cases they

are very close.
I don’t know how these new moulds are

made, but I do know it is very difficult to
accurately replicate Whitefriars moulds, and

all fake vases have inaccuracies of one
degree or another. Some fakes are very

close to the original, whereas others are
glaringly and obviously wrong. Generally

speaking, the first fakes to appear (i.e. in
non-Whitefriars moulds) are much
closer to the originals than those

made in the last couple of years
or so.
There are four known Whitefriars

vases that have been faked by

being made in new moulds. These

are the Onion (pattern number
9758), Hooped (9680), Small
Drunken Bricklayer (9673) and
Large Drunken Bricklayer (9672).

The Onion Vase

THE Whitefriars 9758 Onion vase
first appeared in the 1971

catalogue supplement and last

appeared in the 1974 catalogue.

The standard factory colours are
sage, lilac, aubergine, pewter,

meadow green, tangerine and
kingfisher. They are catalogued

as being 5
1
/4″ but this may vary

a bit and they are often a little

taller at 51/2″.
The fake Onion (and Hooped) appeared in

the around April 2008 and I have since

found out that they may have been made
in Portugal. The Onion is the most difficult
to spot, certainly from a distance or off an
eBay photo, and it must be said that they

have made a pretty good job of replicating
this vase.
Size.
The proportions of the fake Onion

are pretty much the same as the Whitefriars’

ones. The photos show a Lilac Whitefriars

Onion and a Green fake
(fig.1).

Texturing.
The texturing of the fake is

coarser than that of the Whitefriars example

and the ‘Fish scales’ on the fake are laid out

4

THE GLASS CONE NO.101 WINTER 2013

Polished pontil

in a uniform fashion whereas on the

Whitefriars piece it is fairly random
(fig.2).

The Base.
The base on all the fakes is

always the best give-away.
Due to the production methods and the

costs involved, the base looks completely
wrong. They have tried to replicate a

ground pontil (concave depression in the

base) by moulding it in. A genuine Onion

will have a moulded rippled-looking base

with a ground and highly polished pontil.

The fake is the other way round: it has a
flat ground base with a moulded pontil

(fig.3).
Some of the fakes may have a ‘V’

inscribed on the base; this is where
somebody bought a job lot and inscribed

a ‘V’ calling it the Vase Heaven range.

The Top.
The Whitefriars Onion vase had

its top redesigned about 1974 from an oval
to a round opening and the majority of

Whitefriars ones have oval openings. All the
fakes have round openings, so if your Onion
has an oval opening its 100% genuine, but

if round it could be either
(fig.4).

Colour.
The colours that I have seen them

in are green,ruby, lilac and aubergine. The
green is close to the Whitefriars colour

meadow green although slightly darker

(fig.5).
The fake lilac is also very similar to but

a little darker than the original, but the

aubergine is too dark a purple. Ruby is a

non-standard colour for Whitefriars

production Onion vases, so all ruby

colourways are fakes.

The Hooped Vase

The Whitefriars 9680 Hooped vase was
first seen in the 1967 catalogue and last

appeared in 1973. The standard factory
colours are willow, cinnamon, indigo,
pewter, meadow green, tangerine,
aubergine and kingfisher. They

are catalogued at being 111/2″

but this may vary a bit and they

are often a little smaller at 11
1

4″.

The fake Hooped vase also

appeared in April 2008 with the

Onion. It is easy to spot once

you have handled one but they

have done a reasonable job in
replicating the hoops and
various lumps and bumps.

Size.
The height of all the

fake Hooped vases is too high

at 11
3
/4″; it is unlikely that they

would have come out of

Whitefriars at this height. I have

checked on the heights of the

Whitefriars’ ones and I can say
with a good degree of
confidence that if a Hooped is

11
3

/4″ tall, it is a fake
(fig.6).

Texturing.
As with the Onion
Vase, the texturing on the Hooped is

coarser than the original; this is particularly

noticeable in the herringbone pattern, which

is much softer on the original
(fig. 7).

The Base.
The base has the same error

as the Onion. A genuine Hooped will have a

moulded-looking base with a ground and
highly polished pontil. The fake is the other
way round: it has a flat ground base with

a moulded pontil
(fig.8).

Colour.
The colours that I have seen them

in are green, ruby and aubergine.
As far as I am aware, the fake Onion and

Hooped vases were only made in one batch
in 2008 and there have been no others

made since.

Part 2 ‘Whitefriars Moulds and the
Drunken Bricklayers’, will appear in a later

‘Glass Cone’

FAKE

moulded pontil

5

THE GLASS CONE NO.101 WINTER 2013

Antonio Salviati’s

Trade
Card

and Venice

A
short while ago, knowing of my

interest in Venetian and
Facon de

Venise
glass, the glass collector

and dealer Miles Hoole, showed me a
trade card and insert, from Antonio

Salviati (illustrated). This interesting
document set me on a path to find out

more about it.

Background

VENICE and the island of Murano have
been important European glassmaking

centres since the Middle Ages, yet from

the 17th century the island of Murano and
its glass entered a period of gradual decline.

It was not until the 1830s that there were
signs of new life. Antonio Sanquirico, a

Venetian antiquarian, persuaded several
master glassmakers to reproduce some

filigree glass objects he owned. The results
were so splendid that they were reportedly

sold as antiques. Aventurine and obsidian
were rediscovered, and coloured vitreous
paste and gold leaf suitable for mosaics,
desperately needed for the restoration of

the Basilica of St. Marks, were created by

Lorenzo Radi. Yet, by 1860, blown glass
work in Venice had been all but abandoned.
Within a few years, several events occurred

that put Murano and Venice back on to the
world map of glass. In 1861, Venice mayor

Antonio Colleoni and Abbot Vincenzo Zanetti
collected together an archive dedicated to

the history of Venice, containing various
writings, glass and objects of art produced

in the city. This created a renewed interest in

Venice’s glorious past and its glassmaking
and inspired the master glassmakers Toso,
Fuga and Barovier to successfully revive

almost forgotten glassmaking techniques.

Antonio Salviati

ANTONIO Salviati, a lawyer who had come
to Venice from Vicenza in 1859, became

involved in the restoration work for the

mosaics of Venice’s St. Mark’s Cathedral,
winning a fifteen-year contract from the
city authorities.
Unusually for a man who arose to such

importance, I have not found much about

the early history of Antonio Salviati. Why did

he come to Venice to set up his legal
Brian Clarke

Front (top) and back covers of the trade card

practice? What prompted his interest in

mosaics? Why did he, so single mindedly,
alter the course of his professional life and
concentrate on glass? These and so many

other questions still wait to be answered.
Salviati’s interest in mosaics led to an

interest in other glass and glassmaking. In
1866, financed by the English entrepreneur

Austen Henry Layard, Salviati founded

Salviati & Co., devoted to artistic glass, thus
helping to promote glass as an accessible
and popular art form. His success and the
publicity received following the highly

successful Universal Exposition in Paris in
1867, was instrumental in the revival of

Venetian glass. The company created a
collection of glasses, stemware, bowls,
chandeliers, vases and a range of etched

pieces that were sold worldwide.
In 1872, the company was renamed as
the Venice and Murano Glass and

Mosaic Company. Salviati finally
withdrew from this company in 1877

and created two companies: ‘Salviati
Dott. Antonio’ for artistic glass and

‘Salviati e Co.’ was brought back for

the production of mosaics. In 1883,

Antonio Salviati relinquished his

glassworks to the Barovier family, who

continued to exclusively supply

Salviati’s shops, in London, Paris,

Berlin, New York and St. Petersburg.

The Trade Card and Insert

THIS card, when folded once, measures
145x97mm. The inside left page shows that

the single company of ‘Salviati & Co.’ was
dealing with production of all styles of glass

and mosaics — suggesting a date for the
card between 1866 and 1872 (see above).

This historically interesting card, written in

French and English, was very possibly
produced for the Paris Exhibition of 1867.

Two prominent addresses in Venice are
indicated; one on the Grand Canal, just

across the water from Pia77a San Marco

and the Pala77o Ducale, Grand Canal –

S. Gregorio, 195. Ateliers e Salons
d’Esposition’ (workshop and showroom).

The front cover depicts these premises and
the address is repeated on the back cover
underneath the mosaic of the lute player.

The other shop is in one corner of Pia77a
San Marco, Magasin avec Echantillons,
Place St. Marc. N.79A (shop with samples).

The factory and furnace have an address on
the island of Murano, Fondamenta Vetrai,
N.42. The insert fits neatly inside the folded

card, showing a variety of glassware,

including a mirror and goblets, candelabra
and a sweetmeat pyramid.
Antonio Salviati was thus at the forefront

of the 19th-century revival of glassmaking

on Murano. The pieces designed and made

by the company remain very collectable;
they were so well made that even at the

time, experts were often not able to tell the
difference between the 16th- and 17th-

century original Venetian glass, and Salviati’s

historical copies! These and other copies

have given rise to the safe attribution of

6

THE GLASS CONE NO.101 WINTER 2013

SALVIATI & C.’ – VENEZIA

ORANLo .A NAL – S. OREOOR10,175
ATELIERS 8
,

SALONS ErESPOSI I loN

VERRERIES

Vases Sc Coupes art is t in u e s.

Copies tie Verret ancient de Musses •

Services tie tattle en verre aver chiffre,

arinoiries etc. Lustres a lumiere’elec-

triune, boogies etc. – Mimics – Men

Ides et Bronzes artistiques – Statues.

PAOSAiQUe

acorafire pour
Engtises, Hotels pri-

ves, Palais, Villas, Theatres, Plafonds,

Chapelles mortuaires, etc. Riche as-
sortiment de Tableaux et de Bijoute-

net etc. en mosaimtes – Portraits.
MAGASIN

AVEC ECHANTILLONS

PLACE ST. MARC. N. 79 A

GLASSWARE

Artistic Vases – reproductions of

the antique Roman, Etruscan, Egyp-

tian Pompeian glass etc.
Glass Table sets with Monograms

– Crests ere. – Electroliers – Mirrors

•
– Artistic Furniture – Bronzes Statues.

MOSAICS

for decoration of Churches, Palaces.

. Villas, Theatres, Ceilings, Mausole-

, tuns etc. – Bich assortment of mosaics
– Plans of all kinds
and

estimates

furnished on
application • Portrait,
5

S
S

Ualnes a Murano

FONDAVENTA VETRAI N 4,
Furnace at Narita°

FONDAMENTA VETRAI N.42

Venetian style glass as
Facon de Denise.
It is

not possible, without absolute provenance,
to state whether a glass is originally from

16th-century Venice, from Verzilini’s output
in London, from Holland or Belgium, a 17th
century Venetian import from John Greene,
The inside of the trade card (above) and the front

and back of the insert which shows some of the

glassware on offer

or a later glass altogether from Salviati.

A company still trades as Salviati today.

REFERENCES:
H.J. Powell,
Glass making in England,
Cambridge

University Press, 1923.
Liefkes Reino, ‘Antonio Salviati and the 19th century

renaissance of Venetian glass’,
The Burlington

Magazine,
1993.

Lesley Jackson,
Whitefriars Glass: The Art of James

Powell & Sons,
Richard Dennis, 1996.

Gianfranco Toso,
Murano, A history of glass,

Arsenale

Editrice, 2000.
Judy Rudoe,
Reproductions of the Christian Glass of

the Catacombs’: James Jackson Jarves and the

Revival of the Art of Glass in Venice,
The Metropolitan

Museum of Art, 2002.
Marino Barovier,

The Art of Glass on Murano,
Marino

Barovier, 2003

Various free information websites, including Wikipedia
and Encyclopaedia Britannica

The author gives thanks for the use of information from

the writers of all of the reference sources and has cross

referenced all factual information. If errors exist, he

would be pleased to receive their correction.

Latest News from the Paperweight World
Richard M. Giles

fig. I

I hear that Peter McDougall,
the ex-Perthshire Paperweight

manager who retired from
paperweight making back in

February, has no regrets and is

enjoying life without the pressure of having to fulfil
orders. He doesn’t appear to have completely
divorced himself from the world of paperweights

as he has been a guest at events in America
during the summer of 2012. It also seems that he

has an agreement to use the facilities at the

Caithness factory on an occasional basis.
As the number of classic-style paperweight

makers in the UK has continued to fall to just four,

a new name has been added to the list of makers

in the USA. At a meeting of the Paperweight

Collectors Circle back in the summer, we had a
visit from Damon MacNaught, a very personable

young man
who is a
lecturer in design at a
fig.3

Tennessee University and who has been
making glass for some years in his spare time.

After meeting and seeing the millefiori weights
fig.2

produced by Jim Brown,

#

another American maker,

he was encouraged to try his

own hand at making canes and

using them in paperweights. After

some experimentation and a few trials, he

mastered the required skills and his canework

reached great complexity as illustrated in
figs

1&2.
As a comparison, pictured below his

weights is one from Jim Brown who has been

a well-established maker for some years
(fig.3).

Considering that Damon’s paperweight making

remains a part-time occupation, I found his results
very impressive. In discussing the future, he com-

mented that he has the desire to continue to
improve the quality of his weights and I shall take
great interest in his progress. Sadly, as with

weights from most American makers, we get very

few opportunities to see them in any numbers,

7

THE GLASS CONE NO.101 WINTER 2013

plus of course they still remain fairly expensive for

British collectors.
The news from Scotland, which remains the

place where all the classic paperweight makers

are located, is that recently remarried
Willie

Manson
is back making paperweights. He was

the resident artist in the studio at Broadfield

House museum at the beginning of June 2012

when the museum held its paperweight day. I was

able to speak with
John and Craig Deacons
at

a Northern Paperweight Society meeting earlier

in the year and I gather that, ably assisted by

Dave Moir
who worked with members of the

Ysart family at Vasart Glass and later Strathearn

Glass, they continue to be very busy with orders
both for American dealers and production items

for the gift market. Craig and his wife are now the

proud parents of a baby girl so I am not quite sure

how he juggles his family life, rugby and his

work with John. Dave Moir gave an interesting

presentation about his life and his associations
with glass at the last meeting of the Paperweight

Collector’s Circle in October 2012.
Finally, Caithness Glass have confirmed that

lampworker
Linda Campbell
has left to pursue her

accountancy career. When we met her last year

she was only working part-time but earlier this

year had resumed full-time employment. No

mention was made of a replacement so I am
wondering from which source they will get their

lampwork in the future or perhaps they will just
continue with their interpretational weights.

More commemorative weights

1914 Anglo US Exhibition (fig.4)
AS described in my previous articles, this
exhibition was held at the White City Exhibition

Grounds in London, the site of the 1908
Olympics. The weight previously featured showed

the crossed flags of America and Britain; this one

is a sepia photograph showing the Elite Gardens
which appears to be an amphitheatre around a

central bandstand and was presumably the focal

point for musical entertainment.

Whitefriars Mayflower (fig.5)
ISSUED in 1970 to commemorate the 350th

anniversary of the sailing of the Pilgrim Fathers
in the
Mayflower
to the new world of America.

Following the issue of the Triplex and Royal Visit

weights at the time of the Festival of Britain

Exhibition in 1951 and the weight produced for

the Coronation in 1953, records indicate that a

few trial weights, some with date canes, were

produced in the mid 1950s. However, it would

be another 15 years before the company issued

their first limited-edition commemorative weight.

The format was similar to the previous weights
being concentric circles of canes with a central

complex cane made up of seven separate

sections forming the shape of a sailing ship. The

inner ring of canes includes a Whitefriars

signature/date cane. Records show that the

maximum production was limited to 400 weights,

with 389 actually made.
Maude and Bob St. Clair 100th Anniversary of

Garrett, Indiana (fig.
6)

IN previous articles I covered the weights
produced by the St. Clair factory in Elwood,

Indiana and this example, produced in 1975, was
made by Bob and Maude according to the
impressed stamp on the underside. My research

has discovered that the town of Garrett, Indiana

was to the Baltimore and Ohio Railway what

Swindon was to the Great Western Railway.

When building the railway, the directors of the

B&O decided that they needed a suitable facility

for construction and maintenance of the engines
and rolling stock approximately at the midpoint

between Willard, Ohio and Chicago. So in 1875

they took the decision to establish the works in

a new town that would be named after the
president of the railway. With the railway

connection it had special appeal and, courtesy

of a friend, it became one of my rare purchases

from e-bay.

1972 Whitefriars Munich Olympics (fig.
7)

THIS weight was produced in clear glass with
a ceramic transfer fired onto the underside, a

Whitefriars symbol, and the number of the weight,

121, scratched on the side. Only three other

examples of transfer weights are known, one also

made in 1972 and two more in 1976 with the

exact numbers of weights produced currently
unknown. The other 1972 weight was for the
Silver Wedding of the Queen and Prince Philip

with the dates ’20th Nov 1952-1972′ and the

letters ‘E & P’ in the centre. The two 1976 weights

were for the Olympic Games held in Montreal and

featured the Olympic rings inside a maple leaf plus
a private commission for the Glass Manufac-

turers Federation to celebrate their 50th anni-
versary. For the 1976 games in Montreal, the

company also returned to the use of milleflori and

produced weights featuring the Olympic rings –
500 produced on a coloured ground and 500 on

a clear ground. In addition, each weight had an

Olympic torch cane and two other complex canes
with the year. Exactly the same format was

repeated for the 1980 games in Moscow, but

according to the records only 116 were sold.

Victorian souvenir weights
ONE
mystery that has never been completely

solved is where the souvenir weights, made in the

Victorian era between around 1860 and 1890

and which could be obtained from all popular

locations around the country, were actually created.

Various reference books suggest that they were

made either in UK or on the continent or perhaps

a combination of both, with the transfers being
made abroad and the glass blanks in the UK or
possibly the other way round. Having often seen

spelling mistakes in the names of the locations, my

opinion tends to lean towards the assumption

that at least the transfers were made abroad. My

recent find
(fig.8)
doesn’t completely solve the

mystery, but it does indicate that the transfer and
probably also the glass blank of the weight in the

illustration were made on the continent. The

picture has a representation of one of the most

commemorated British buildings, the Blackpool

tower; just underneath the words ‘Present From

Blackpool’ are the words ‘Made In France’. This
obviously is not a good enough proof that all such

weights were made there, but in my view does

give a good indication of their origins.

8

THE GLASS CONE NO.101 WINTER 2013

Cockerel Cocktail Glasses

-BRITISH MAKERS –
Bill Millar

HE
last article described

cockerel glassware by Stuart

Crystal and this article looks at

other British makers. I must start with

a confession. While there are design
books for Stevens & Williams and

Thomas Webb, the other makers
were not considerate enough to let

their design books fall into public
ownership when they gave up

making glass. This view of their

products is, therefore, confined to

what I have been able to collect and

identify. This article almost certainly
offers an incomplete view but half a

loaf. If you can add to this knowledge

I would be delighted to hear from you.
Cairngorm was widely used so if you

see a glass in this slightly muddy

amber colour there is every possibility
it was made by S&W.
Another most distinctive glass,

also designed in 1925, is at
fig.3.
The

glass cherry in the centre of the bowl

is unmistakable; the engraved cock-

fighting scene is one of six. Various
glasses, with the same distinctive

cherry, were produced in different

colours and shapes with a variety of

cockerel motifs. A later product is the

shaker with its matching glasses with

six engraved cockfighting scenes,

see
fig.4
(only one glass shown). This

was a presentation piece dated 1938.

Right -fig.4:

S&W Presentation

shaker of unusual

shape with one of

six matching

glasses.

Stevens & Williams, of all the British

manufacturers, are my favourite
producers of cockerel glassware. Their
designs are complex, colourful and

well made. I identified eight of their

products and assumed they

represented a fair proportion of their

range. Big mistake. Their ‘description

books’ for 1919 to 1930 include 196

entries with anything up to 10 or 12
different versions for each entry — at

least 500 different products and over

10 years of designs still to be
checked. The thumbnail drawings in
the design book are about % scale

so, given the lack of a maker’s mark,
positive identification is difficult.

Fortunately, the glasses identified
provide a reasonable view of the
disparate mix of their designs and

techniques sufficient to support the
claim that Stevens & Williams
produced the best range of cockerel

cocktail glassware in Britain.
Their first cockerel glass design is

dated 1919 — the first I can positively

identify was designed in 1923. It is
based on an alabaster glass originally
designed in 1915 and two examples

are shown at
fig. 1.
Both were

originally etched and gilded but the

blue glass has clearly enjoyed an
over-enthusiastic

‘Brillo’

clean

removing all but the tiniest piece of
gilding. The design book does not

indicate which colours were used but

S&W produced rose, pale orange
and turquoise in addition to the
blue and jade green seen at
fig. 1.
The

glass at
fig.2
was designed in 1925

and is very striking with a white bowl
cased in amber (Cairngorm in S&W

speak) uranium glass with enamelled

motif. Cairngorm was introduced

about 1918 and is a uranium glass
which glows green in UV light.

Above – fig.1:

Stevens &Williams

blue alabaster and

jade green

cocktails.

Left- fig.2:

Stevens &Williams

Cairngorm and

white cocktail.

Right – fig.3:

Stevens & Williams

engraved cherry
cocktail.

THE GLASS CONE NO.101
WINTER 2013

9

Above – fig.5:

Stevens &Williams

jade green, etched

and gilded
cocktail shaker.

Top right – fig.6;

S&W Cairngorm

optic moulded

shaker and
matching glass.

Left-fig.
7
:

S&W Diamond

moulded shaken

Below-fig.8:

S&W Clear etched

shaker

Having acquired a cockerel cocktail

shaker with the registration number
718885 attributed to O.S. Middleton
with a date of February 1926, I was
keen to find out more about the maker.

This was the only glass registration
filed by Middleton and a great deal of

fruitless searching failed to produce
any information about such a glass-

maker. Subsequently, I found another
completely different version of the

cocktail shaker bearing the same

registration number decorated with a
cockerel similar to that on the glass at

fig.2,
which pointed to S&W as maker.

In confirmation of this the S&W design
book entry for the shaker includes the
registration number. You may recall

mention of the O.S. Middleton patent
for a cocktail shaker pouring arrange-

ment in the article on Stuart Cockerels

(Cone 100)
and I can only assume that

just as he appears to have sold his
patent to Stuart Crystal, he sold the
design for a shaker to S&W. Perhaps

Mr Oliver Smith Middleton (011ie?) was
one of Bete Wooster’s set. I like to

think of him sitting in a smart cocktail

bar sipping his cocktails while he
drew designs for improved cocktail

barware on a serviette. Research
would undoubtedly produce a more

prosaic biography.
Returning to the shakers, the regis-

tered shape was first used in mid-

1925 and regularly used thereafter in
substantially different ways. Further

research may explain why the design

book date should precede the regis-

tration date. Four examples are
shown. The first
(fig.5)
is in Jade

Green with an etched and gilt

cockerel. The silver-plated top carries

the mark of an Edinburgh jeweller.

The second
(fig.
6) and its matching

glasses (only one shown) are optic

moulded in Cairngorm and have
engraved cockfighting scenes.

Incidentally, the 1927 wholesale price
of this shaker was 22.5p and the
glasses were 52.5p per dozen. The

third
(fig. 7)
is diamond moulded with

an enamelled motif. The fourth
(fig.8)

is in flint glass with an etched

cockerel but does not carry the

registration number. The silver plate
carries the marks for Charles S.

Green, a Birmingham silversmith.

I have also seen this shape of shaker
with silverwork by Dunhill including

a smart tray with a rail in the centre
to hold the shaker in place and space

around it for glasses, and in flint with
transfer-printed cocktail recipes and

a cockerel.
S&W produced a huge range of

shapes, colours and decorating

techniques – they probably designed
over 500 different cockerel cocktail

items by 1930 with more to come. It

appears from the design books that
they produced variations for different
customers so that many of the items
were probably produced in relatively

small numbers.

S&W traditionally produced glasses

with items such as coins or dice

enclosed in the stem. From 1928 to

1939 Bill Swingewood was employed
to produce lampwork items, including
cockerels, for use as enclosures.

Fig.9
shows one example of his work

with a cockerel and a hen. Other

versions with various numbers and

cockerels colours were also produced.
Thomas Webb
obviously felt

differently about producing cockerel

cocktail glasses. Their design books

include only five glasses and one
shaker. Having said that, none of the

four glasses I have collected is in their
design books (more research needed).

Fig.10
is nicely engraved and carries

the pre-1939 acid mark ‘Webb’. The

two glasses at
fig.11
carry the same

acid-etched cockerel. The glass on
Fig.9: S&W cocktail with lampwork
cockerel and hen enclosure.

the left carries the post-1938 mark
‘Webb made in England’ while the

glass on the right has no maker’s

mark. Finally, the glass at
fig.12
also

carries the post-1938 mark and is
decorated with the same etched motif
which has been partially engraved.

Without design books and

catalogues for the next two makers

I can only report on marked glasses
which I have been able to collect, and

with a collection of some 600

cockerel items I have done my best.

I would welcome input from any
readers who can help on this point.

Edinburgh and Leith
produced the

footed tot at
V.13
which has

10

THE GLASS CONE NO.101 WINTER 2013

engraved cockerels and the E&L acid

mark beneath the foot.
Webb Corbett did not mark all of

their glasses. The glass at
fig.14
is

held at Broadfield House and has
been attributed to Webb Corbett

because the palette and method of
decoration, using deep acid etching

to remove areas to be enamelled, is

the same as known Webb Corbett
items. The cut shaker at
fig.15

carries the Webb Corbett acid

mark to the base and the cockerel
has been etched and then engraved.
Bimini was established in Vienna

in 1923 by Fritz Lampl and
produced Venetian-type glass-
ware using lampwork techniques.

His most commonly recognised
works are glasses incorporating

a naked, dancing lady as the stem
of the glass. He was Jewish and

in 1938 he sensibly abandoned

his most successful business and
emigrated to Britain. In 1940 he was

interned, probably fortuitously, as

during this period of incarceration his

workshop was destroyed by bombing.
Above left- fig.10:

Thomas Webb

engraved cocktail
with ogee bowl.

Above centre –
fig.11: Thomas

Webb pair of

etched cocktail

glasses.

Above right –
fig12: Thomas

Webb post war, cut

etched and

engraved glass.

Left- fig.13:

Edinburgh & Leith

footed tot.

Below- fig.15:
Webb Corbett cut,

etched and

engraved shaker.

He changed the company name to

Orplid in 1943 and continued to
produce this distinctive glassware
until 1955 when he died.
He produced cockerel glasses

in various shapes and colours with

either one or two cockerels enclosed
within a glass

ble, or some-

times two bubbles, in the stem.
The glasses were produced in
various colours and shapes. The
glass illustrated at
fig.16

has a

white latticino bowl and foot

with a single lampwork cockerel.

The fineness and fragility of the

glasses is probably why so many

survive as most will never have
been used and have spent their

entire life in display cabinets.
Bimini also produced lampwork

cocktail sticks with a wide variety
of objects on the end. I have not

knowingly seen any with cockerels
but I have seen the original

packaging for a set of Bimini cocktail

sticks and the front is decorated with

a resplendent cockerel and a cocktail
glass. They would certainly have
produced cockerel cocktail sticks but

it is extremely difficult to positively

identify the maker.
I would be delighted to hear from

any readers on any points raised by
this and the previous two articles.

[email protected].

Left-fig.14: Webb Corbett cocktail,

etched and decorated in enamels.

Fig.16: Bimini/Orplid cocktail with a

latticino bowl and lampwork cockerel.

THE GLASS CONE NO:101 WINTER
2013

11

The Perfumed Valley

H
AVE you ever wondered, while

wandering through the brightly lit,

elegant perfume departments of

large stores, how and where the gorgeous

glass scent bottles were designed and
produced? You may be surprised to learn

that over 80% of them come from a small
geographical area about the size of one of

our home counties, a few miles across the
Channel in an area called the Vallee de la

Bresle near Blangy-sur-Bresle in Normandy.

Over 60% of that production comes from
just two glass companies in the area.
There have been more than seventy glass

companies in the Vallee de la Bresle making

bottles by hand for nearly 700 years. It is

believed that the first glassworks was

founded as far back as the 12th century by

Italian master glassmakers, perhaps from

Venice, well before glassmaking started on
the island of Murano.

The five main families running the glass-

works became French through marriage

and their descendants were recognised and
ennobled by Colbert, at the time of Louis XIV.

Family names in the Bresle Valley include de

Ferre, de Caqueray, Bongars, Brossard and
Le Valliant. It is unusual, but true, that in France
glassmaking was the sole industrial process

considered honourable for a nobleman, and

the term ‘gentilhommes verriers’ (gentlemen
glassmakers) was widely used. In all
probability this was because it was the

wealthy aristocratic landowners who built

the factories and owned the premises, hiring

skilled artisans to make the glass bottles

and flasks. Though the ennobling of
commoners led to this saying: ‘Votre

noblesse est mince, gentilhommes de verre,
si vous tombez a(?) terre, adieu vos qualite

(Your noble attributes are thin, gentlemen of

glass, if you fall on the ground, watch your

ar**). As far back as 1313 King Philippe IV
of France gave Philippe de Caqueray — an

equerry, permission to start a glass factory

to make flat glass near Bezu in Normandy,

called La Haye. This was before the creation

of the great flat glassworks of La Glacerie,

near Cherbourg, a few hundred miles away
from Bresle, which made the mirrors for the

amazing Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.
Stephen Pollock-Hill

The Companies

THE two most prestigious glass factories in
France today are Baccarat* and St Louis.’

They are both situated in Alsace, and both
had aristocratic chairmen until quite recently.
Until 1989 Baccarat’s chairman was Le
Comte de Chambrun, and at St. Louis,

Le Baron du Coetlosquet.
Nowadays two large companies dominate

the perfume bottle market. The first, St

Gobain Desjonqueres at Mers les Bains,
dates back to 1896 when it was known as

the Verrerie de Treport. It was owned by
several generations of the Desjonqueres

family until, following a merger with France’s

largest glass company, St Gobain, the

I
nnn
•
nnn

.
n
f

M

Kayo. Ilout

II

A..*
;0.

4.,

P…1

1111

,•• • ow el

Fig. 1: A group of cutting staff at Glassworks

ofDarras at Blangy.

name was changed to SGS Desjonqueres.
2

The second major perfume bottle maker is
the Verreries Pochet et du Courval at

Senarpont, a tiny village of only 770
inhabitants in the Somme valley, Picardy.

This glassworks was originally set up by the

Comtesse de Eu, who became Duchesse
de Guise in 1623. Situated within the forest

of Eu, there were plentiful supplies of timber

for the furnaces literally on their doorstep.
Around 1850, the company created a

famous bottle for Eau de Cologne which

Guerlain supplied to the Emperor Louis-
Napoleon III, nephew of Napoleon I and first

President of the French Republic.

* Now owned by Stanwood Hotels of the USA.
The advantages of the valley

SO why was this area so attractive to glass-
makers? Principally, it had the fuel and the

raw materials, mainly timber and lime. In
France, burning wood in furnaces was freely
permitted up to 1880.
3
The Normandy forests

of Eu in Longwy and Lyons, some of the

largest in France, had plentiful supplies of

cheap combustible wood. The glassmakers

used pine, oak and larch and had special

rights known as `droits d’affouage’ (special
collection and felling rights) that afforded

them very low-cost timber prices. At the end
of the 18th century there were over 25 glass

factories in these forests.
Readily available was thaux’ (lime) from

the river banks, cut through by the Somme

and Bresle rivers, and ‘fougere’ (bracken)
which, when burnt, provided potash and

potassium.
4
.
6
The local sand, washed down

by the rivers, contained quite a lot of iron,

making the bottles green in colour.
6
There

were also large quantities of clay for making

the pots, and furnaces and a ready source
of water, powering mills to drive the pulleys

for cutting, grinding and finishing the glass.
The position of the Vallee de la Bresle was

also advantageous for 19th-century trade,

located midway between Paris and London,
with the Somme and the Seine rivers close

by for canal-boat transport. There was also

the combined benefit of having furnace

makers, mould makers, glassmakers and
raw materials in close proximity.

The Museum
IN 2009, after several years of planning and
a sum of around 4m euros, a new museum
was set up to record the last 300 years of

glassmaking in the area, called Glass Vallee/

The Museum is housed in an historic old
fortified farmhouse, with its barns and a

modern corrugated steel extension where
hand blowing is demonstrated.
Entering the reception room, the walls are

hung with old monochrome photos from the
1920s and 30s
(fig.1),
showing groups of

employees from a number of companies,
the men in hats, waistcoats and braces

and the women in long skirts. The names

displayed include Verreries Brose, Walters-

12

THE GLASS CONE NO.101 WINTER 2013

Fig.2: A furnace pot maker

perger, Romesnil, Nesle Normandeuse and

Verreries de Darras at Blangy.
8

Moving on through the museum one gets

into a long, well-lit room, where you are
presented with the tools and furnaces used

in the various stages of glass production.

The installations are brought to life with the

use of life-size wax mannequins
(fig.2),
albeit

rather unrealistically portrayed with impeccably
clean and neatly pressed clothes.
I was struck by how many different colours

were produced in small jockey pots, orig-

inally often propped up on a larger pot of

clear soda-lime or lead-crystal molten glass.

Next on display were examples of the
moulds and machines — ‘suck and blow’,
‘blow and blow’ — shiny clean machines, all

in perfect working order but now made

redundant by high volume demands.
9

A mock-up of a furnace, lit with an orange

light and with jockey pots
(fig.3),

shows how

melting and fusing is done. Then a glass-
blower, blowing iron to his lips, with a young

boy of about ten opening the long wooden

Fig.4: A glassblower with a young boy opening
the long wooden mould.
mould

(fig.4).
A pot furnace mock-up has a

team pressing ashtrays by hand with presser

and tipper-out. The last display is of a lehr, to

demonstrate annealing
(fig.5),

a mannequin

unloading the glass from the conveyor.
Continuing into the main hall, about

fifteen large display cases fill the room
(fig.6),

showing perfume and aftershave bottles

from the 1920s up to the present day, all in

chronological order. There must be over

1,000 glass bottles and posters in the
displays, making one realise the volume of

bottles that have been made, some of the
rare ones being quite valuable.
10

Fig.3: Jockey pots for coloured glass.
The final part of the tour is in a modern

studio, where a glassmaker demonstrates

how these bottles are made by hand, using
rolled-in colour from powdered oxides.
Some famous perfumes, with their bottles

produced here by Pochet et du Courval,

are ‘Shalimar’ by Guerlain,
11

‘Voyage’ by

Hermes, ‘Kokorico’ by Jean-Paul Gaultier,
‘Fleur de Cristal’ by Lalique and ‘Aura’ by

Swarovski. SGS Desjonqueres, who started

with a small hand factory at Le Treport, have

become an international giant. Since being

bought in 1992 by St Gobain, they have
expanded internationally with factories in

Spain and Germany and into the USA
in 1996 with two factories at Covington in

Georgia and Sparta. Between 2002 and
2006 the Usine de Zhanjiang factory has
been built in China and the Usine de Sitall

factory in Russia. Since 2010, the majority of

SGS Desjonqueres has been owned by an
American investment group.

Not every famous perfume bottle comes

from this region. The well known Cristalleries
de Baccarat in the Moselle region supplies

Guerlain with the ‘Shalimar’ perfume bottle,

a classic, first released in 1921 and inspired
by the beauty of Mumtaz-Mahal, the lady for
Fig.5: A wax female mannequin unloading the

glass from the conveyor

whom the Taj Mahal palace was built.

However, to anyone interested in the
perfume bottle, its manufacture, design, and

variety, a visit to the Glass Vallee and its

museum is a must.

FOOTNOTES
1.
Owned by the world famous fashion house Hermes.

2.
The writer met Dominique Desjonqueres in the late

1970s.
3.
In England it was forbidden by James I in 1612 to

conserve the best timber for the Royal Navy.

4.
By law, bracken could not be harvested until June.

5.
A UK company called Brackenburn is marketing

bracken pellets which are claimed to have 64% potash
and 12% humidity, are ecofriendly and completely

sustainable.

6.
Unlike the pure deposits at Fontainbleau that are

virtually iron free.

7.
www.la-glass-vallee.com/en

8.
www. verrene.e-monsite.com/pages/le-

developpement-d-une-industrie/les-differentes-

verreries.html

9.
Between 1971 and 1974, just down the road from

the old works, a state of the art, modern, steel shed

large automatic production glass factory was built by

Pochet et du Courval. A four-head automatic tank
furnace made small perfume bottles by the millions,

replacing much of the hand blown variety.

10.
Today, on the internet, you can buy part full bottles

of perfume that were discontinued years ago.

11.
Shalimar was originally made by Baccarat, but the

smaller machine-made bottles are shown In the Pochet

et du Courval display case. It could be that the very
large expensive bottles costing several thousand Euros

are still made by hand by Baccarat!

SOURCES

The author acknowledges help from the Museum and

the websites noted in the footnotes.
‘La vie des Gentilshommes Veniers’,
Bibliotheque du

Travail,
no.717, January 1971.

EDITOR’S NOTE.
A travel article to the Vallee de e

Bresle appeared in
The Glass Cone,

no.63, Spring

2003, written by Geoff Timberlake.

Fig.6: The main hall with historial items on

displayglass from the conveyorashtrays by hand
with presser and tipper out.

THE GLASS CONE NO.101 WINTER 2013

13

The Auction of the

Edward V. Phillips Glass Collection

T
HE glass community was out in force on

6 November 2012 for the sale of an important
private collection of 18th-century glass. The

Edward V. Phillips collection auction at Halls Fine Art

in Shrewsbury attracted collectors and dealers from
all over the country to its Welsh Bridge auction
rooms. Nearly 180 lots went on sale ranging from
sweetmeats and taper sticks to Jacobite and

Williamite wine and cordial glasses, the star lot being
the Lennoxlove Amen glass.
Edward V. Phillips amassed the collection over a

period of 20-odd years from the mid 1960s – having

made his fortune in the grain industry. He lived a quiet
life in the Cotswolds, buying from local dealers such

as Aubrey Burton and later using these contacts to

act as agents when buying from important estate
sales in the London auction rooms as well as from

the larger London glass dealers. In later life Phillips

moved to the Welsh/Shropshire border near Knighton,
where he led a quiet and relatively secluded life. He
died in December 2011

and Halls was instructed to

auction his entire estate.

Most glass lots were in
very good condition,
saying much for Edward

Phillips connoisseurship.

The taper sticks were

the first lots to go under

the hammer, most selling

well above their estimates.

Highlights from this section

included lot 83, an elegant
stick with plain nozzle
over a four-ring collar on

an air-twist stem over
triple collar, beaded knop

and a domed and moulded foot; this made £1,900

(est. 2700-£900 ).
Lot 85
(fig.1),
a taper stick circa

1740, had the rare features of a mushroom knop as

part of the baluster stem, set on a beehive foot; this
was bid up to £2,700 (est. £400-£500).
A number of small oil lamps followed, most selling

just above their estimates of 260-£80. Amongst the

firing and dram glasses, lot 93, an opaque twist dram
glass on a terraced foot, circa 1765, sold for £400

(est. 2250-£350).
The majority of the unengraved wine glasses were

of twist-stem composition, most selling between

£150 and £520;
lot 101
(fig.2),
a goblet of 185mm

with a rib-moulded cup bowl and rib-moulded
John Keightley

Above: Fig. 1 – lot 85
Left: Fig.2 – lot 101

Upper right: Fig.3 – lot 170

Lower right Fig.4 – lot 224
Below: Fig.5 – lot 221
wrythen foot, with a the incised twist stem between,

was bid to £1,050 (est. £500-2700). A few heavy

baluster goblets attracted greater interest, with

lot 102, a well-balanced glass with a fine mush-
room knop, selling in the room for £3,400

(est. £1,200-£1,800). The one broken glass of the

auction (lot 104), formerly a baluster goblet circa 1700
broken during Phillips’ lifetime, attracted interest in the

room – the hammer falling
at £180 (est. £20-£40).
Lot 170
(fig.3),
a Duke

of Cumberland portrait
glass with excellent prov-

enance, which had been

exhibited at the Victoria

and Albert Museum a

number of times in the
1960s, went above its top

estimate of £2,500, selling

for £4,400. This was fol-
lowed by a Hanoverian

wine glass engraved with
‘Liberty’ (also formerly

from the Jeffrey Rose
collection), which sold just
below its £2,000 low

estimate for £1,900.
A large selection of

sweetmeats, mostly with
dentil rims, sold for mid-

estimate prices ranging

from £130 to £680.
Before the so called

‘Irish’ cordial glasses of

variously twisted stems

and moulded bowls, a

number of ale flutes
were sold. Lot 200, an

engraved, double series
opaque twist example,

sold for £500 (est.
£200-£300). The cordials

attracted a range of
interest from telephone as

well as room bidders, the

unengraved examples
doing slightly better than the engraved versions, with

lot 204 – a mercury twist glass – selling for £700

(est. £350-£450). Two ratafia glasses appeared at the
end of this section: the first (lot 220) selling below

estimate for £400 (est. £600-£800), while the

14

THE GLASS CONE NO.101
WINTER 2013

Fig.7- lot 246

Fig.9 – lot 250
Fig.6 – lot 240

second,
lot 221
(fig.5),

more unusual

with deep wrythen flutes on a slender

trumpet bowl over a double opaque

twist stem, was bid up to £1,100

(est. £300—£400).
The Williamite glasses had varying

success, some failing to attract

sufficient bids despite having some

interesting sale history and prov-

enance. One glass,
lot 224

(fig.4)

(est. £1,200—£1,800), a Williamite
cordial inscribed The Glorious
Memory of King William
Ill’,

previously

part of the A. Churchill collection and

illustrated in his
History in Glass,

did

catch the interest of bidders, selling

for £2,600.
The final lots were the Jacobite wine

glasses, many of which had passed

thorough the London auction rooms
in the late 1970s, and almost all
bought by Phillips through Aubrey

Burton (either as Phillips’ agent when
buying at auction or from private
collections such as Frances L.

Dickson, Arthur Churchill and George
Berney). The provenance for almost
every glass was recorded in Phillips’

handwritten notebooks.
Lot 240

(fig.6),
a Jacobite goblet with the

Prince of Wales feathers engraved
on the foot and ‘Revirescit’ on the

bowl (est. 22,500—£3,500), was
competitively bid up to £8,200, while

the next lot, a Sir Watkin Williams

Wynn glass which had passed

THE GLASS CONE NO.101 WINTER 2013
Fig.8 –

lot249

through the hands of Cecil Davis, the
Owles Collection and
F.H.

Ahn, did

almost as well reaching £6,400 (est.
£1,500-22,500). Other stars included

the Jacobite portrait glasses, lot 247

(est. 22,500—£3,500) and
lot 249

(fig.8)
(est. £5,000-7,000), selling to

telephone bidders and room bidders

alike for £3,400 and £12,000

respectively .
The Jacobite portrait decanter,

lot 246
(fig.7) —
est. £4,000-6,000,

engraved with ‘Audentior lbo’ over the
bust of Charles Edward Stuart — last
sold by Sotheby’s in 1986 where it
was bought for £8,900 including

commission — only made a hammer

price of £5,200.
Finally lot 250
(fig.9)

(est. £20,000-

£30,000), the Lennoxlove Amen

glass, believed to have been
engraved by Sir Robert Strange,
started in the room at £20,000
but quickly attracted a telephone

competitor. The eventual hammer
price was £43,000, sold to a private

collector on the phone.
Of the 176 lots offered for sale, only

10 lots failed to sell. The total hammer

price for the glass section was
£151,245. Rarely does such an

important collection become offered

for sale outside the London auction
rooms, so this was one of the high-

lights of the year for the Shropshire
auction house of Halls.

15

Fieldings Auction October 2012

Decades of Design & Clarice Cliff

N August 2012, as part of the International

Festival of Glass celebrations, Allister Malcolm

at Broadfield House and Elliot Walker at the Red

House Glass Cone, aided by some of the top

names in the World of Glass, went head to head

in a glassblowing challenge. The end result was

a great number of exquisite one-off pieces that
Fieldings offered for sale on Saturday 27 October,

as part of the day-auction. Both the artists and
Fieldings gave their services free of charge and all

the funds went straight to the British Glass

Foundation (BGF) to support their cause of
keeping the collections and archives at Broadfield
House, Himley Hall and Coseley together and on

display. The sale and donations raised over
£10,000 for the BGF.

Picking just a few pieces from the

‘glassblowing challenge’; Lot 1010, a ‘collectors’

vase from Jonathan Harris and Allister Malcolm

with eye-catching Japanese-influenced imagery
of a silver carp swimming and shimmering

amongst the reeds, was bid up to £2,300;

Lot 1021, a delicately-created cameo vase from

Helen Millard and Allister, also with Japanese style

decoration of flowers and a butterfly standing out

in green overlay over a ruby ground sold for

£1,100; Lot 1025, an angular, abstract composition
Brian Clarke

of mainly blue glass and slate,

reminded me of an iceberg jutting
out from a cold sea, from Sue Parry
4%
4.-

working with Allister, made £210;

Lot 1037, a vase skillfully built by

Richard Golding working with
Elliot to create a landscape of

flowers, foliage and a swirling blue
sky was bought for £600.
Amongst other items, at

estimates to suit all pockets, the

auction had many lots of central

European glass, offering a role call of
famous names from Galle, Daum,

Baccarat, and Lalique to Loetz,

Lobmeyr and Moser and further lots
from Scandinavia, Italy and Britain.
Lot 215 consisted of a spectacular

group of sea-green coloured glasses, designed

for James Powell & Sons by T.G. Jackson, Philip

Webb and probably Harry Powell. From the left
in the fig. below, the tumbler seems to be a

T.G. Jackson design. Next, his wine glass is
shown in Plate 5 on page 97 of Lesley Jackson’s

book on Whitefriars Glass. The following
the day. The two delightful Lalique

Ceylan vases, design no.905 from

1924, also 240mm high, decorated

in relief with pairs of love birds
were sold separately in Lots 698

and 699, and made respectively

£3,300 and £3,200.
It is very unusual to find a Jena

glass tea service set as sold in Lot

594. The teapot, from an original

design by Wilhelm Wagenfeld, of

Bauhaus fame, in the 1930s, was

modified for machine production by

Heinrich Loffelhardt in the 1950s and

again by Ilse Decho in the early 1960s.

wineglass is by Philip Webb and is shown in

Plate 4 of the same book. The sherry glass

appears similar to the flint glass shown in Plate 7

of Lesley Jackson’s book on page 98. At £680
plus premium and
VAT,

this works out at just under

£31 per glass for the 27 glasses. A good deal for

the purchaser!

Lot 62 was a spectacular pair of Loetz Art

Nouveau silver overlay, slim-neck vases. Standing
240mm high, this handsome lot made £2,200 on

16
THE GLASS CONE NO.101 WINTER 2013

J

rt
c
Made of heat-resistant borosilicate

glass, the machine glass is thinner

than the early blown examples.

The design of the teapot handle

suggests that this set is probably

from the 1950s (is there a
date on the packaging, dear

purchaser?) and is emblematic

of the clean, modern lines seen

in many areas of post-war design.

At only £90 hammer price, this
represented excellent value.

Lot 686 was a 200mm high

clear, cut and polished crystal

vase of barrel form, decorated
in the Albany pattern. Designed
by Clynne Farquhason for

Walsh Walsh, it was signed and
dated 1938. The hammer price

for this vase, with its well known

design, was £260.
Another vase, this time Scan-

dinavian was by Kaj Franck for

Nuutajarvi Notsjo. A delightful

design with the internal air bubble

spirals over a fine air bubble mesh.

Lot 936 was sold for £130.
Lot 938 was a large Zanfirico

(Rligrana a Retortol0
vase for Venini.

A 280mm tall masterpiece in white

cane, of the technique used for
so long by the Venetians with a
folded rim that gave it an extra

touch of 1950s Italian design
flair, sold for £420. The next

Lot 939, was a Vicke Lindstrand
‘Spring’ vase for Kosta. In clear
crystal, the cut design of birds

resting on branches about to
bud, comes from the 1950s.

This peaceful scene by a
famous name resulted in a

hammer price of £1,250.

Lastly, Lot 1118
geft)
stands

out because of its vibrant

colour and size. 440mm high

and cased clear over mottled

red, with a vertical white

patch and line design, both

unmarked and unknown, the

purchaser must have been

delighted to have bought this

designer vase at the extra-

ordinarily low price of only £45.

Photos of lots 1010, 1021, 1025 and 1037 courtesy of Simon Bruntnell.

Harry Clarke at Ashdown Park
Gaby Marcon

THE article on the Chagall windows of
All Saints church in Tudeley
(Glass Cone 98)

caused one of our members, Christopher

Maxwell-Stewart, to reflect on how poorly
appreciated 20th-century stained glass

windows are in England. His comment
came with an exhortation for someone to

write about Harry Clarke’s vast range of work,

his grounding in his father’s glass atelier and

also his graphic work with its ‘Beardsleian’

quality to it.
While agreeing with Christopher about

the poor appreciation of stained glass, I
found some excellent books written about

Harry Clarke and his work, notably the

lavishly illustrated
Strangest Genius: the

Stained Glass of Harry Clarke, 2010,
and

the most recent,
Harry Clarke – the Life and

Work, 2012.
Additionally, as from last

September, a Harry Clarke ‘Stained Glass

Tour of Ireland’ has been introduced
(Glass

Cone
99). Furthermore and following a

GA trip to Ireland, Bob Wilcock wrote an

interesting article on Harry Clarke the artist,

and on his masterpiece, ‘The Eve of St.

Agnes’
(Glass Cone 90).

Indeed there are many admirers of his

work, and many of us who are keen to find

out more about this prolific and contro-

versial artist without being caught in the

argument of whether stained glass is art

or craft. So, armed with a map and a tripod
off we went to Ashdown Park Hotel in East

Sussex, the former Convent of Notre Dame,

to see the splendid windows he created
for this Victorian gothic mansion. We were

warned that these windows were some of

the darkest and richest stained glass

windows around and therefore difficult to
photograph, particularly on a sad rainy day,

so the picture quality was less than we had

hoped for.
The former chapel at Ashdown Park has

now been converted into a dining area and

a floor has been inserted to create a lower

level, thus making the windows more access-
ible then they were originally. Clarke’s glass fills

the fourteen lancets, arranged as seven pairs,
with astounding scenes from the life of Mary.

They were completed in 1925 and include:

Immaculate Conception & Visitation; Mary’s

Presentation & Annunciation; Visitation &
Espousal; Our Lady, Queen of Angels; Holy

Family & Presentation of Jesus; Adoration of
Magi & Descent of Holy Ghost and the

Assumption & Coronation of Mary. There is a

further Harry Clarke window at the west end
of the former chapel, a depiction in three

lights of the Immaculate Conception with St

Anne, also designed in 1925.
The heavy lines and the richness of

colours, particularly the deep blues (we were

reminded by the porter that the artist used at
least 30 shades of blue), remind me very

much of both the Cathedral of Chartres and

Sainte Chapelle in Paris. This vaulted apse is
certainly worth a visit – do try and make it on

a sunny day as it is very difficult to capture
the brilliance of the glass in photos. Thank

you Christopher for the recommendation.

17

THE GLASS CONE NO.101 WINTER 2013

MEMBERS

Treasures at the
National History
Museum (NHM)

LAST November the

Duchess of Cambridge
unveiled ‘Treasures’ at the

NHM. ‘Treasures’ is a

free permanent exhibition

located in the newly named

Cadogan Gallery on the
upper mezzanine floor. It

features 22 of what the museum says are the
‘most extraordinary specimens’ that it has

displayed. Each tells a story and has been chosen

for its scientific, historical, aesthetic and cultural
importance. Among the exhibits are Blaschka’s

models of marine animals commissioned

between 1866 and 1889. Three of the 182

models will go on display at any one time. The
delicate glass artworks of sea creatures were

crafted by father-and-son team Leopold and

Rudolph Blaschka. Leopold was born in what is
now the Czech Republic, where he learned the
art of lampworking. Blaschka models (see
above)

include sea anemones, octopuses, squid,

jellyfishes, radiolarians, amoebas and corals;

extremely fragile structures and amongst the

most beautiful in the collection.

The National Glass Centre (NGC)
THE NGC is now closed to the public for an
ambitious redevelopment of the Centre. Its entire

upper floor will be remodelled and a new heritage

gallery will be added, while the education and

resource rooms will be upgraded. The project,
due for completion in Summer 2013, will improve

the teaching and learning facilitiesand significantly
increase the exhibition capacity. The Centre

will re-open to the public with a high profile

launch event, the opening of three exhibitions of

national significance and an ambitious community

engagement programme.
Two celebrations

– one Young Arts project

STOURBRIDGE Decorative and Fine

Arts Society (DFSA) has sponsored
the making of an eye-catching piece

of stained glass to commemorate

the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Young people with learning

disabilities studying at Amblecote’s

Glasshouse College have created a
stained and fused glass artwork
which represents the Olympic torch

and the Greek sun god Apollo. The
students were helped by glass art

designer Paul Floyd, whose studio is
based at the Ruskin Glass Centre on the college

site, off Wollaston Road. The project, falling under

the Young Arts scheme, is aimed at helping
children and young people to learn through the

arts. Meriel Harris, chairman of Stourbridge
DFAS, stated: ‘Supporting Young Arts is one of

the most important activities within our society

Anyone interested in
photographic material?

I have for disposal, a collection of about 880
colour transparencies and 2,500 black and white

negatives of a wide range of glassware.
The transparencies, which include early glass

ranging from Egyptian and Roman to Venetian

and European, were mostly acquired from
museums but the majority of them, and the
negatives, were taken by me and are mainly of

English glass of all periods that passed through
my hands as a dealer.

Many of the black and white pictures have

appeared in books and articles.
They could be of interest to writers, glass

historians and lecturers and, with today’s

technology, could all be converted to digital
L to R: Alex 7imbrell, Paul Floyd and Ann Norgate.

Courtesy of Stourbridge News

and we are proud to have established this link of
co-operation with Glasshouse College and the

Ruskin Glass Centre during 2012 which marks
400 years of glassmaking in Stourbridge.’

images. I would be delighted for anyone interested

to contact me by telephone on 0116 2302625

or by email at [email protected].
— John Brooks

Cambridge Glass Fair,

Sunday 24 February 2013

MAURICE and Pauline Wimpory will be hosting
an exhibition at the forthcoming Cambridge Glass

Fair featuring two little-known English glass
factories: The Harbridge Crystal Glass Company

Ltd which was based in Stourbridge from 1928
to 1965 and the Watford Glass Company Ltd

(trademark Watford Crystal) which was based

in Watford between 1932 and 1992. For a
preview take a look at www.cambridgeglassfair.

com/exhibitions/foyer-exhibit.htm.

Laser Paperweight – a query

OVER the years I have collected paperweights,
wine glasses, vases, uranium glass, glass animals

and other curiosities. GA members have always
been generous in helping with information about

my pieces. I also have a few laser paperweights,

which are more of an unknown quantity. Some
laser weights originate from the former USSR,

some from China, and some are now made in the

UK. I have also seen one which was bought in

India, although its origin is uncertain. However,
it is difficult to obtain much technical information

about their manufacture. The decoration within
the glass is generated by computer-controlled

laser, leaving a frosty white image (left). I am not
aware of the type of laser used.
One less usual piece, which I have

(right),
also includes some red

coloration within the image. I have

also seen red and yellow together

(in the piece from India). Informed

opinion is that this is due to a
constituent (undefined) within

the glass, which is ‘struck’ by
laser to yield the colour (possibly
induced photochemically, rather

than by the conventional

reheating). Can anyone contribute
any further information?

— John Westmoreland

18
THE GLASS CONE NO.101 WINTER 2013

and by the tremendous interest and fear

of aliens, may lead one of our members

to hunt for more information on these

unusual creatures, including starting a
discussion on how glass manufacturers

keep up-to-date with public fashion

and interest.
Andrew informs us that the tripods are

by Webb, reg.210755
(The War of the

Worlds
was first published in 1898). The

tallest tripod measures 9″ high by 9″ wide

(23cm) and the smaller one is 7″ by 7″

(18cm). They were purchased separately

many years and thousands of miles apart.

I doubt many of us have seen these

three-legged objects lurking in antique

shops! Not even Andrew Lineham, who

sent us these pictures, would wish to
keep them for very long — that’s how

dangerous they are. These unusual

vases certainly remind one of the ‘three-

legged fighting machine’ (tripods), from

the H.G. Wells science fiction novel
The

War of the Worlds,
which were used by

the Martians to invade the Earth.
The rekindled interest in these objects,

sparked by the new musical version of

The War of the Worlds
by Jeff Wayne,
THE

WA I-1, OF

THE WORLDS

MEMBERS

Does anyone know about these ‘Martians’?
Seen at the
British Art Fair, London,

January 2013

A novel use of glass! Antonio Riello,
working in Venice, has produced a
series of blown glasses and trapped

in them the ashes of the books he

treasured most.

Entitled ‘Ashes to Ashes,

2010-2012, Mouth blown venetian

glass, burner book ashes’ and priced

at £2,400 a glass, amongst others,
they contain the burnt remains of

Ulysses, Doctor Zhivago, Fahrenheit

451
and

The Picture of Dorian Gray.

THE GLASS CONE NO.101 WINTER 2013
19

,

1:
150
4
1
,

wean WIMP

al”
–
–
116

MEMBERS

A Crystal Palace
Goblet

THE Crystal Palace and the 1851 Exhibition were
the topics presented and discussed at our AGM
last October. This large goblet, housed at The
Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle has since come

to our attention.
Standing 255mm high, this clear lead-crystal

goblet has a generous bucket bowl with flute

cutting around its base, over a single-knopped

stem and multiple star-cut foot. The bowl is
continuously engraved with a view of the Crystal

Palace and the date 1851 is engraved beneath a
crown, flanked by two large trees. The foot has

much wear on the undersurface.
The goblet, a gift from Mrs Ena Robertson in

memory of her husband Ian, was presented to the

museum early last year.

Photos courtesy of the Bowes Museum,
Barnard Castle

Absinthe glasses:

two theories and no evidence

MARC Thuillier, one of France’s most respected

absinthe experts sent us the following note and

pictures in the hope that one of our members

can shed some light.

Here are the photos of the glasses; we believe they

are all from the 19th century. Some are made of plain

glass, some of crystal. They are called ‘Bubble glasses’

in the absinthe community, simply because of the

bubble-shaped hollow knop which is believed to be

the absinthe dose (3-4c1) before cool water is added.
But here is my problem with these glasses: the hollow

knop and the cup are both linked together by a very little

hole (5-6mm wide), which is not very appropriate to the

absinthe ritual where ice-cold water is poured from a
carafe (or a dripper or a specific water fountain) in a thin

stream over the absinthe to create a cloud-like reaction

called ‘Iouche’.
I’ve been doing research on these glasses for two

years and found two theories but no evidence yet, and
no picture or catalogue showing them.

1st theory:
They are ‘Trick glasses’ from the UK.

When the drinker had finished his glass, the beverage

still contained in the stem was splashing in his face

through the little hole. This is a fact we verified several

times — it works. Unfortunately I can’t find any glassware

catalogue showing Trick glasses.
2nd theory:
In the early 19th century, before

champagne — and similar drinks — were filtered, it was

very common to use a glass with a hollow stem to retain

the sediment at the bottom. Unfortunately, no catalogue

is showing a bubble-shaped stem.
I’m not sure either of these theories applies to the

glasses shown here; I’m just having guesses from my

research. Thank you very much for your help. Much

appreciated. — Marc Thuillier, The Virtual Absinthe

Museum, http://www.absinthemuseum.com/

20

THE GLASS CONE NO.101 WINTER 2013

THEDUKE

TiARLOORoitcl;
+ 41.

MEMBERS

A Duke of Marlborough Commemorative Goblet

SHOWN in the pictures is a commemorative goblet depicting John

Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough (26 May 1650 -16 June 1722) at
the Battle of Ramillies in May 1706.
The goblet has a rounded bucket bowl with an engraving of the

Duke of Marlborough on horseback with his sword drawn. The

reverse is engraved The Duke of Marlborough at Ramillies’ within

a shield-like cartouche. The goblet stands 27cm (10%’) high, has a

knopped stem and plain foot. It would appear to have been made in
the 19th century, although the style is of an earlier date. My research

to date suggests that the goblet only came to light in about 1920, but
other information was not available from that source.

Marlborough was an English soldier and statesman whose career

spanned the reigns of five monarchs. Portraits of Marlborough are

well known, being attributed to Godfrey Kneller, Enoch Seeman and

other listed artists, as well as stained-glass windows and tapestries.
However, depictions of Marlborough on glass, other than in stained-

glass windows, appear to be quite scarce. It is not surprising that this

goblet commemorates Marlborough at Ramillies, as this battle, one of

eight Battles of Spanish Succession, is often regarded as his most
successful military action.
Several questions remain unanswered. Why was this presentation-

sized goblet made? Was it a single commission or one of a set?

Who commissioned its manufacture and was the date significant?

Where and by whom was it made?
I am currently in touch with the staff at Blenheim Palace in the hope

that they can provide me with information or at least point me in the

right direction for further research. — Alan Gibbs

Glass Association Events
6 April 2013

How did they make 18th-century wine

glasses?

THIS event is now full. We are collecting

expressions of interest for an event on murrine
making at Quarley in Spring 2014 and also for

another day on the making of 18th-century

glasses. Please contact

[email protected]

Spring 2013
AS we write, we are finalising the date and
programme for a visit to the Preston Harris

Museum & Art Gallery which opened a

ceramics and glass gallery designed by
Meyvaert who has also worked with the Louvre,

the Pompidou Centre and the V&A. Details and

booking form accompany this issue of
The Glass

Cone
and will be posted on the website.

Austria/Hungary
28 August – 3 September

THE trip to Austria and Hungary is going ahead.

The trip will start on Thu 29/8 in Vienna (arrival

late afternoon/evening on Wed 28/8) and will

end on Mon 2/9 in Budapest (departure either

on Monday evening or Tuesday morning).

The full programme will be posted on the

website as soon as it is finalised.

Please contact: [email protected]

19 October 2013

Ruskin Glass Centre, Stourbridge

THIS year our AGM and study day will be held in
WHAT’S ON

the renovated Ruskin Glass Centre, which
includes a newly-established Webb Corbett
visitor centre. Put the date in your diary as it will

be an exciting and interesting day.

Other events
30 January-12 May
Blackwell, The Arts & Craft House,

Bowness-on-Windermere
www.lakelandartstrust.org.uk

DURING 2013 the CGS is continuing its work

with Glass Skills – a year of celebrations of the
glassmaker’s art. The year kicks off with two

important exhibitions – New Glass at Blackwell
House in Cumbria and Hot Glass at the
Contemporary Applied Arts in London from

19 April to 25 May, where the best in

contemporary blown, hot-worked and sand-

cast glass will be on show. Throughout the year,

there will be online shows, spotlights and links
with glass centres and galleries around the Glass

Skills theme and, in October 2013, the Glass

Skills conference at the National Glass Centre in

Sunderland. For more information, please
contact [email protected] or call

07972 167945

19 February
`Whitefriars Glass Study Day’

– Museum of London

THIS event is organised by Decorative Art
Society (DAS) and is open to members only.

The study day, led by Alex Werner, will begin by

focusing on a number of late 19th- and early
20th-century Whitefriars pattern books and

designs. Contact [email protected]

23 March
Hot Stuff at Station Glass, Shenton,

Leicestershire
LOUIS Thompson will be at the Station for the

third hot stuff collaboration. Cupcakes and a
glass of wine to all those who want to see

Richard and Louis making magic happen.

www.stationglass.com

10-13 May
COLLECT 2013 at the Saatchi Gallery,

London

THIS year Collect celebrates its 10th anniversary.

It will bring contemporary art objects from the
world’s finest galleries including Adrian Sassoon

and The Gallery at London Glassblowing.

Forthcoming Auctions – 2013

Sat 23 March: Fieldings – Centuries of Glass

Wed 1+2 May: Bonhams – British & European
Glass including the Meyer & Muhleib Collections

Thu 6 June: Bonhams – European Ceramics
and Glass

Forthcoming Fairs – 2013

Sun 24 February:
Cambridge Fair, Linton Village

Sun 12 May:
Birmingham National Fair

Sun 22 Sept:
Cambridge Fair, Linton Village

Sun 10 Nov:
Birmingham National Fair

THE GLASS CONE NO.101 WINTER 2013

21

4

1

—

/ii

r
ly
44

4

A
4
7
4/N \
it

,

N

‘iv

vir

-4,1,

VIN

4r

r0
1

1
1
1 oir

4
,
NIP “WIFINIFIV
4

/ 4
sk

11
‘

rdrif
11

4
b

The Glass Cone

THE MAGAZINE OF THE GLASS ASSOCIATION
wvvw.glassassociation.org.uk

PROMOTING THE UNDERSTANDING AND APPRECIATION OF GLASS