OLD GLASS
Of all the old-time wares, glass, until recently, has been most rarely
collected, and in consequence, whereas specimens of silver and pewter
are comparatively abundant, examples of glass are scarce. There are
several reasons for this, the principal being its fragility; and then,
too, the date of its manufacture is very uncertain. To be sure, the
shape and finish of a glass piece determines in a measure the period of
its make, but it is not proof positive, any more than are the traditions
handed down in families as to the time of purchase of certain specimens.
Yet, notwithstanding all this, the price of old glass is constantly
increasing, and within the last few years has almost doubled.
The first glass made was of a coarse type, crude in shape, and of
greenish coloring, with sand and bubbles showing on its surface,
detracting from its finish. Examples of this type are very scarce
to-day, bringing prices wholly at variance with their attractiveness. Up
to the eighteenth century, all glass was very expensive, making it
prohibitive to all but the wealthy classes, but since that time its cost
has been greatly reduced, and beautiful specimens, of exquisite design,
can now be purchased at prices within the means of almost every one. Of
course, these later specimens do not possess the quaintness of old-time
pieces, and to the collector they are of no interest whatever. The fad
of collecting has brought into favor the old types, and throughout the
country the regard for old glassware is constantly increasing, although
it will be some time before it comes into prominence here in the same
measure that it has in England.
[Illustration: PLATE LVII.--Venetian and English Decanters; Toddy
glasses, about 1800; English Glass with Silver Coasters. Very old.]
While the origin of glass is not definitely certain, yet specimens are
in existence which are known to have been made before the coming of
Christ, such as the celebrated Portland Vase, a Roman product, now seen
in the British Museum. After the decline of glass making in Rome, the
craft was gradually taken up in Venice and Bohemia, the output of the
former country ranking among the finest made, and including, among other
things, the exquisite Venetian drinking cups, which are unrivaled in
beauty.
[Illustration: PLATE LVIII.--Russian Glass Decanter and Tumblers; Note
the exquisite cutting on this Decanter.]
So important was the craft considered in these early times that
manufacturers received great attention from the government, were dubbed
"Gentlemen," and were looked upon with awe by the common people.
Naturally, great secrecy surrounded the plying of the craft, and this
secrecy led to the circulation of mysterious tales. One legend was that
the furnace fire created a monster called the salamander, and it was
firmly believed that at stated intervals he came out of the furnace, and
carried back with him any chance visitor. People who glanced fearfully
into the furnace declared that they saw him curled up at one side of his
fiery bed, and the absence of any workmen was at once attributed to this
monster's having captured him.
The early green glass of the Rhine and Holland, while made by
German-speaking people, cannot be considered as characteristic of German
glass. These people lived on either side of the mountains which gird
Bohemia on three sides, and divide that kingdom from Silesia, Saxony,
and Bavaria respectively, and the glass they made was painted in
beautiful colors, the finer kind being engraved in the upland countries,
where water was abundant. Gilding was also much employed by them, and we
learn that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries this decoration
was fixed by a cold process; that is, by simply attaching the gold leaf
by means of varnish. This form of decoration was only lasting when
applied to the sunken parts of the glass.
Very little of this glass was used in the section where it was
manufactured, nearly the whole product being exported to Austria,
Germany, Italy, the East, and even to America. The industry was popular
in Bohemia, for it furnished labor to a part of the population, helping
to keep them from want, and it procured for the rich landowners a
revenue from the use of their woods.
The factories, which were rudely built, were located in the center of
forest tracts, and they produced, in addition to ordinary glass pieces,
articles that were intended to be highly worked or richly engraved, also
colored glass, decorated with gilding and painting. Long experience in
the manufacture of colored glass had made these workmen expert in this
branch, and any advice they needed, they obtained from men of
information who made their living by seeking out and selling secrets
concerning processes and improvements in glass manufacture. All capital
required was advanced by rich lords, who were eager to insure the
success of industries established upon their premises.
Glass cutting and luster making were regarded as special trades, being
carried on in huts beside small streams; and engraving, gilding, and
painting likewise formed separate branches, all paid by the very lowest
wages. Products of all the factories were collected by agents from
commercial houses, and by them distributed among the various markets.
Comparison between the Bohemian product and the older glass upon the
market resulted strongly in favor of the former. It was clear, white,
light, and of agreeable delicacy to the touch, and no other glass as
purely colorless was made until the modern discovery of flint glass,
made by the use of lead.
Through the invention of one Gasper Lehmann, improved engraving on
Bohemian glass became possible, opening a field for decorative art that
hitherto had been undreamed of. With his pupil George Schwanhard, he
improved designs, and the world went engraved-glass mad. Nothing but
this type would sell, and as material became scarce, Venetian pieces,
already a hundred years old, were brought into requisition and engraved.
At the commencement of the seventeenth century, some of the Bohemian
manufacturers were producing vases of various shapes enriched with
engraved ornaments, representing scenes, and frequently portraits. Some
of the former type are shown in the wonderful collection owned by Mr.
W. J. Mitchell at Manchester, Massachusetts. With the pronounced
popularity of the Bohemian engraved vases, artists in other countries
began decorating their ware in like fashion, those of France employing
interlaced flowers. These were etched on, rather than engraved, however,
and cheapened the ware; in other countries the results obtained were no
better, all failing to compare with the Bohemian specimens, for the art
of engraving here had been learned from long experience by workmen who
were experts in their line.
Many Bohemian pieces showed an original decoration in the way of
ornamentations in relief on the outside, while the art of cameo
incrustation was also first used by Bohemian workers, who sometimes
varied it to obtain odd and pleasing effects by engraving through an
outer casing of colored glass into an interior of white, transparent, or
enameled glass. One such specimen, a salt cellar, is shown in the
Mitchell collection.
[Illustration: PLATE LIX.--English Cut Class Decanter, about 1800;
Typical Red Bohemian Glass Decanter; American Glass Bottle, Jenny Lind,
about 1850.]
Ruby coloring was a characteristic of many fine Bohemian pieces, and its
acquirement was a source of despair to any number of workers, it being
hard to hit on just the right combination to produce the desired shade.
So important did this feature become that we learn of one Kunckel, an
artist, being given sixteen hundred ducats by the elector of Brandenburg
to assist in attaining perfection in this shade of coloring. The ware of
this type was made in the last half of the seventeenth century, and
specimens were the admiration of all beholders.
[Illustration: PLATE LX.--Bohemian Glass. The center one is rare,
showing figure of Peacock in Red and White; English Cut Glass
Wineglasses, 1790; English Glass Decanters. Very fine and rare.]
It is a ware that possesses a strange attraction. No other type of glass
is more a favorite with collectors than this, and no other encourages
the amateur to greater endeavor in its pursuit, no matter how
discouraging it may be at first. Then, too, no matter how large the
collection may be, it is never monotonous, for the various specimens
show a great diversity of form and ornamentation.
The collection of Bohemian glass shown at the Mitchell house at
Manchester, contains some wonderful examples of the art, including
decanters with long and slender stems, odd salt cellars in frames of
silver, bonbon dishes, and numerous other pieces, some in the rare ruby
coloring, and others in white and gilt.
Other fine pieces are found at the Nichols house on Federal Street,
Salem, and in the Atkinson collection, also at Salem, while at Andover,
at the old Kittredge house, many rare bits are to be seen. All of
these specimens are heirlooms, those in the Kittredge house having been
in the family since the home was erected, in the latter part of the
eighteenth century.
While examples of all types of glass are to be found in America, perhaps
the most common specimens are of English make, brought to the new
country after business had become firmly established, along with the
other fine household equipments. Among these are many fine decanters and
tumblers of various designs, particularly interesting from the part they
shared in the long accepted belief that glass drinking vessels of every
kind, made under certain astronomical influences, would fly to pieces if
any poisonous liquid was placed in them; and also that drinking glasses
of colored ware added flavor to wine, and detracted materially from its
intoxicating quality. Some of these drinking glasses, known in England
as toddy glasses, were the forerunners of our present tumblers.
English collections, of course, include much earlier specimens of the
ware than do American, for it was not until the latter part of the
eighteenth century, when the seaport towns of New England were at the
height of their prosperity, that sea captains brought here from England
and other ports all kinds of glass. Some of the finest of this found its
way to Salem, and in the Waters house, on Washington Square, are stored
some of the rarest of these specimens. These have all been collected by
Mr. Fitz Waters, who has devoted years in research of old-time things,
and they represent not only the different periods of manufacture, but
the output of the different countries as well. Included are many
engraved pieces, decanters which cannot be duplicated, and rare and
wonderful bits, such as toddy glasses and numberless other glasses of
varying kinds, many of them beautifully engraved with delicate tracery
and the tulip of Holland.
Many beautiful wine glasses and tumblers can be classified by their
name, such as the white twist stem, made between 1745 and 1757,--the
twisted appearance of the stem being the result of a peculiar
process,--the baluster stem, and the air twist stem, some of the latter
showing domed feet.
Several of the best types of glasses are shown in the West collection in
Salem. The cutting of the stems of several of these fix the date of
manufacture at about 1800, while others of unusual shapes show bird and
shield designs, also the wreath and flower. It is by the design more
than anything else that the date of manufacture is fixed, determining
the choiceness of the piece, and the money it should bring.
While England has furnished most of the pieces shown here to-day, yet in
the Northend collection in Salem are several fine Russian specimens.
These are deeply cut, and were brought to this country from Russia by
one John Harrod about the year 1800. For many years they were stored in
the old Harrod house at Newburyport, finding their way to their present
abode when the Harrod dwelling was dismantled, the owner being a
descendant of this family. One piece, which is most unusual, is a deep
punch bowl with a cover.
Curiously enough, the first industrial enterprise undertaken in America
was a factory for the manufacture of glass bottles. It was built very
early in the history of the Virginia colony, and stood about a mile from
Jamestown, in the midst of a woodland tract. Later, other factories were
erected, many of them manufacturing glass beads to be used in trading
with the Indians. The oldest glass plant still doing business, which has
been continuous since its beginning, is located at Kensington in
Philadelphia, having been established in 1711.
To many it may be still unknown that Bohemian glassware has been
manufactured in this country, and at a very early period. From Mannheim,
in Germany, in the year 1750, came a certain Baron Steigel, whose
parents had dubbed him William Henry. He laid out, in Pennsylvania, the
village which bears the name of his native place, and there he
established ironworks and glassworks, and deeded a plot of ground to the
Lutheran congregation, in consideration of their annual payment,
forever, of one red rose. The glasshouse was dome-shaped, and so large
that a coach-and-six could enter at the doorway, turn around inside, and
drive out again. He brought skilled workmen from the best factories in
Europe, and made richly colored bowls and goblets, which have the true
Bohemian ring, and which are now in the possession of local collectors.
His works did not continue for any length of time, as he failed in
business about five years after he started, but the old Steigel house is
still standing in the heart of the town, distinguished by the red and
black bricks of which it is built. And there still, in the month of
June, is often celebrated the Feast of Roses, one feature of which is
the payment of a great red rose by a church officer to the baron's
descendants.
But of all the old glass made here, perhaps the bottles form the most
interesting portion. For the first seventy years of the nineteenth
century, fancy pocket flasks and bottles were manufactured in the United
States. The idea of the decorations probably came, in the first place,
from the fact that English potters were decorating crockery with local
subjects, in order to catch the American trade. This glassware, however,
was wholly the result of our own enterprise. The objects here shown were
blown in engraved metal molds, which had been prepared by professional
mold cutters.
Colors and sizes vary too much to be a test of age. The scarred base and
the sheared neck are the surest sign of age. In all the older forms, the
neck was sheared with scissors, leaving it irregular and without
finishing band; also, the base always showed a rough, circular scar,
left by breaking the bottle away from the rod which held it while the
workman was finishing the neck.
Smooth and hollow bases were made between 1850 and 1860 by means of an
improvement called a "snap" or case, which held the bottle. At the same
time, a rim was added to the mouth. The designs were worked out in
transparent white, pale blue, sapphire blue, light green, emerald green,
olive, brown, opalescent, or claret color. Twenty-nine of these historic
flasks bear for ornament some form of the American eagle; nineteen
different designs display the head of Washington, and twelve the head of
Taylor.
Their shapes varied with the passing of time. The very earliest were
slender and arched in form, with edges horizontally corrugated; then
came in vogue oval shapes, with edges ribbed vertically. The next
pattern was almost circular in form, with plain, rounded edges; and at
this time some specimens show a color at the mouth. Then appeared the
calabash, or decanter form, no longer flattened and shallow, as the
others had been, but almost spherical, with edges that showed vertical
corrugation, ribbing, or fluting; with long, slender neck, finished with
a cap at the top; with smoothly hollowed or hollowed and scarred base.
These were superseded by bottles arched in form, deep and flattened,
having vertically corrugated edges, a short and broad neck, finished
with a round and narrow heading, and a base either scarred or flat. Last
of all appeared the modern flask shape, also arched in form, with a
broad shoulder, a narrow base, plainly rounded edges, and a return to
the flattened and shallow type of the earliest manufactures. The neck
had a single or double beading at the top, and the base was either flat
or smoothly hollowed.
All the Kossuth and Jenny Lind bottles were made about 1850. The Taylor
or Taylor and Bragg bottles belong to the period of the Mexican War, and
were probably blown in 1848. One of these bears Taylor's historic
command, "A little more grape, Captain Bragg," as delivered at the
battle of Buena Vista. Another has a portrait of Washington upon one
side, and that of Taylor upon the other, with the motto, "Gen. Taylor
never surrenders." This shows the circular, canteen shape.
One of the very oldest forms known to have been decorated in this
country is the one which bears in relief a design of the first railroad,
represented by a horse drawing along rails a four-wheeled car heaped
with cotton bales and lumps of coal. This picture runs lengthwise of the
bottle and bears the legend "Success to the Railroads" about the margin
of the panel. This could not have been produced earlier than 1825. Some
of the Washington designs belong to earlier periods, as do the eagle
and United States flag. Most of the Masonic decorations belong between
1840 and 1850.
The log cabin designs are connected with the notable Harrison "hard
cider" campaign of 1840, as are the inkstands made in the form of log
cabins, cider barrels, and beehives. The dark brown whisky bottles in
the shape of a log cabin are souvenirs of the same period of political
excitement, and were made by a New Jersey glass firm for a certain
liquor merchant in Philadelphia.
The Jackson bottles belong to the period of the stormy thirties. The
"Hero of New Orleans" is represented in uniform, wearing a
throat-cutting collar which entirely obscures his ear.
A Connecticut firm, in the late sixties, sent out a bottle of modern
shape, decorated with a double-headed sheaf of wheat, with rake and
pitchfork, having a star below. At about the same time a firm in
Pittsburg put upon the market a highly decorated flask, similarly modern
in outline, having upon one side an eagle, monument, and flag; upon the
reverse, an Indian with bow and arrow, shooting a bird in the
foreground, with a dog and a tree in the background.
Some bottles of unknown origin were decorated with horns of plenty,
vases of flowers, panels of fruit, sheaves of wheat, a Masonic arch and
emblems, ship and eight-pointed star, and a bold Pikes Peak pilgrim with
staff and bundle to celebrate the passage of the Rocky Mountains.
Among the early curio bottles shown are numerous fancy designs in the
form of animals, fishes, eggs, pickles, canteens, cigars, shells,
pistols, violins, lanterns, and the like. To this class belongs the
Moses bottle, which also goes by the name of Santa Claus. It is of clear
and colorless glass, with a string fastened about the neck and attached
to each end of a stick which crosses the top.
Should the collector enlarge his fad so as to take in bottles from
foreign lands, he would find that his collection would gain much in
beauty. In the Metropolitan Museum of New York there is a very
comprehensive exhibit of rare Venetian glass bottles and vials, which
was the gift of James Jackson Jarves. These are the most brilliant and
elegant types of their kind, graceful and refined, dainty and ethereal.