THE COLLECTORS’ POCKET SERIES
EDITED BY SIR JAMES YOXALL, M.P.
COLLECTING
OLD GLASS
THE COLLECTORS’ POCKET SERIES
EDITED BY SIR JAMES YOXALL, M.P.
Each Volume Illustrated. Price 3s 6d net
[Illustration]
COLLECTING OLD GLASS
By J. H. Yoxall
COLLECTING OLD MINIATURES
By J. H. Yoxall
COLLECTING OLD LUSTRE WARE
By W. Bosanko
COLLECTING OLD PEWTER
By H. J. L. J. Massé
COLLECTING OLD PRINTS
By E. Gray
COLLECTING OLD WATER-COLOURS
By R. W. Howes
(Other Volumes in Preparation)
[Illustration: decoration]
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, LTD
COLLECTING
OLD GLASS
ENGLISH AND IRISH
BY J. H. YOXALL
Author of “The Wander Years” “The A B C
about Collecting” “More about Collecting”
_The glass of fashion and the
mould of form_: Hamlet, iii. 1
[Illustration]
LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN, LTD
_First published January 1916_
_New Impression March 1925_
_Printed in Great Britain_
PREFACE
I hope the reader may find that this book, though smaller than others
on the same subject, is more helpful and even more comprehensive than
they are; that it deals with the glass articles which they mention
and with others which they omit; that it simplifies and classifies
the study and practice of glass-collecting more than has been done in
print heretofore; and that it can do these things because it is written
out of personal knowledge, gained from much experience, and not from
hearsay or from other books.
Diffuseness has been avoided, but this, I hope, has enabled me to make
the book the more lucid, as well as the more succinct. At any rate,
it affords hints, general rules, and warnings more numerous and more
practical than any published until now; I have also tried to give to
it a quality which reviewers have found present in my other books on
Collecting--that is, a simplicity and clearness of explanation, done
at the most difficult and necessary points, and in an interesting way.
Moreover, this book has had the great advantage of revision (before
printing) by Mr. G. F. Collins, of 53 the Lanes, Brighton, a pupil of
Mr. Hartshorne’s, and well known to all principal collectors of old
glass. Most of the illustrations represent typical pieces in my own
collection, but for some of the finest I have to thank the kindness
of Mrs. Devitt, of Herontye, East Grinstead, a collector indeed. The
illustrations do not represent relative sizes to the same scale.
J. H. YOXALL
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. OLD ENGLISH GLASSWARE 1
II. SEVEN GENERAL GUIDES AND TESTS 14
III. BLOWN WARE 26
IV. CUT, MOULDED, AND ENGRAVED WARE 29
V. OLD COLOURED GLASS 35
VI. OLD DRINKING GLASSES 40
VII. THE VARIOUS TYPES OF STEM 46
VIII. THE VARIOUS SHAPES OF BOWL 56
IX. OTHER STEMMED DRINKING GLASSES 60
X. JACOBITE, WILLIAMITE, AND HANOVERIAN
GLASSES 66
XI. TUMBLERS, TANKARDS, “JOEYS,” AND
“BOOT” GLASSES 73
XII. BOTTLES, DECANTERS, AND JUGS 76
XIII. BOWLS, LIFTERS, SUGAR-CRUSHERS,
SPOONS, ETC. 79
XIV. CANDLESTICKS, LUSTRES, AND LAMPS 81
XV. COMPORTS, SWEETMEAT, JELLY AND
CUSTARD GLASSES 84
XVI. SALT CELLARS, PEPPER BOXES, SUGAR
BASINS, ETC. 88
XVII. MIRRORS, GLASS PICTURES, GLASS KNOBS 90
XVIII. OLD PASTE, GLASS BEADS, AND TAWS 92
XIX. GENERAL HINTS AND WARNINGS 95
INDEX 107
I. OLD ENGLISH GLASSWARE
The glassware made in England and Ireland during the eighteenth and
part of the nineteenth century was the best of the kind ever made. In
quality, tint, feel, and ring the plain blown glass was a beautiful
product, and when it was cut or engraved the decoration was done by
fine craftsmen and often with excellent taste. Old glass has its own
peculiar charm; the dark beauty of the crystal metal, the variety
of form, the bell-like ring when flipped, the satiny feeling of
the surface, the sparkle of the cut facets, and the combination of
gracefulness and usefulness attract a collector: in cabinets it shines,
gleams, glows, and sparkles in a reticent, well-bred way.
[Illustration: (1) MOULDED; (2) COTTON-WHITE; (3) CUT KNOPPED; AND (4)
CUT AND MOULDED CAPTAIN GLASSES]
Then there is attraction in the historical and social traditions which
have gathered around the ware; romance lingers on in the Jacobite
glasses, the Williamite glasses, the Georgian glasses, the rummers and
groggers engraved and drunk from to celebrate the victories of Nelson
or famous elections; and humour resides in many of the relics of the
punch-bowl and six-bottle days. To honour particular occasions one’s
fine old glasses may come out of the cabinet and be used at table
again; I know a collector of “captain glasses” who brings them out for
champagne. For decoration or in use old glass has a refined, artistic,
aristocratic air.
NEITHER TOO RARE NOR TOO PLENTIFUL
The sound of the past seems to throb in the ring of this frail and
dainty ware; at your touch the cry of the bygone seems heard again.
Because of fragility, enough of eighteenth-century glass has not
lasted on to make it common, and yet so much of it is still extant
that a collector’s hunt for it is by no means a hopeless quest. It may
still be acquired at reasonable prices from dealers in antiques, and a
hunter for it in odd corners, who buys in shillings, not in pounds, may
reasonably hope to pick up many fine specimens for next to nothing even
yet. Four years ago I bought a fine drawn cordial glass for 2d. Within
the past three years I have myself bought a perfect captain glass for
3s. 6d.; within the last year I have bought six punch-lifters for
17s. 6d. in all, uncommon as these bibulous old siphons are. A large
Bristol coloured-glass paper-weight may cost you £3 in a dealer’s shop,
because three years ago they began to be a “rage,” but within the past
two years I have bought a Bristol glass article, equally beautiful in
colour and glass-flowers, and much rarer, for 2s. Footless coaching
glasses and thistle-shaped fuddling glasses are seldom seen, even on a
dealer’s shelves, but I have found one of each, in odd corners, for 6d.
THE TIME TO COLLECT IS NOW
[Illustration: WATERFORD GLASS ENGRAVED AND CUT: NOTE THE FANLIKE
EDGING AND THE “STAR” CUT TO EDGE OF BASE; ALSO THE DEEP CUTTING OF THE
FLORAL ORNAMENT]
Now, if ever, is the time to collect old glass rather cheaply, for
already the prices of it are mounting in a remarkable way. Thirty
years ago old wine glasses engraved with roses, rosebuds, and
butterflies--rose glasses, as they are called--could be bought for
half-a-crown apiece or less--dozens of them; this price has multiplied
nearly twentyfold. Waterford cut-glass grows more and more dear to
buy, from dealers who know it when they possess it--they will soon be
selling it as if it were antique silver, at so much per ounce--but only
last year I bought in a provincial town a captain glass of this ware
for 15s., though £8 was the price asked for one just like it in the
West End. Now, if ever, is the time for a beginner to take up this line
of collecting; old English and Irish glass will never again be so easy
to find at reasonable prices as it is now.
SUCH CONNOISSEURSHIP NOT DIFFICULT
Collecting is a form of education, but it is not difficult to become a
knowledgeable collector of old glass. Counterfeits are sent out by the
thousand, forgeries lie in wait, totally new glassware, imitative of
the old, is on sale in hundreds of curio dealers’ shops, some of them
otherwise honest and respectable; but only ignorance or carelessness
need be taken in. A little study, a little observation, a little care,
and the beginner will soon be able to avoid mistakes. Connoisseurship
in old glass is less difficult than it is in old china, for example;
porcelain or earthenware collecting is more various, more detailed,
has reference to longer periods of manufacture, and involves much
more specific knowledge than glass-collecting does. Yet I have known
two or three collectors of porcelain who declined to begin collecting
old glass because, they said, they would “never dare”--as if an
almost miraculous skill were needed to become a connoisseur in old
glass! In point of fact, this is the easiest hobby to study and know;
glass-collecting requires an eye for the different shades and tints of
the metal, a finger-tip for the feel of it, an ear for the ring of it,
and not much money as yet, and practically that is all. There are no
trade-marks to puzzle or deceive you; there is no such distinction,
difficult to understand and master, as between “soft” china and “hard.”
At present old glass is easy to know, and not difficult to find.
I propose in this book to _give general hints, “tips,” and instructions
applicable to every variety of old glass; to explain the seven
principal tests of genuine age and antique make; to prepare the
beginner to go out collecting glass with the infallible rules and
principles for it fixed in his mind_. Equipped with these, anyone may
examine, test, and if satisfactory buy any vessel of glass which he or
she may find in any odd corner. I am not writing the book for the rich,
but for people with more taste and cultivation than money, and though I
deprecate “collecting” for the sake of selling again at a profit, I may
well point out that old English and Irish glass, bought cheaply now,
may become an investment _de père de famille_; the collector may have
the joy of finding it, the continual pleasure of owning it, and yet
know that it will turn out to be “good business” for his heirs, when
the sale comes, at the end.
ADVANTAGES ASSOCIATED WITH GLASS
The collecting of old glass is not yet systematized; there are no
dealers’ catalogues of it or prices current. For the next few years
this advantage will continue in connexion with old glass. Every dealer
knows the high price which square-marked Worcester china can command;
every second-hand bookseller knows the price current of first editions,
or copies of rare books; but such is not the case with old glass as
yet. Systematization has hardly begun; there has been little research
into the history of makes and the names of makers. Here is another
advantage for a collector: he may discover things of that kind at
present unknown, and thus attach his name to the history of old glass
which will some day be written. A local collector may at no great cost
make a donation of his treasures to the local museum. There is no
public collection of Newcastle-made glass at Newcastle, for instance,
or of Sunderland-made glass at Sunderland, and no local antiquary has
studied the history of the fine glass products made on the Tyne and
the Wear. Nobody knows which kinds of glass were made at Norwich or
Lynn. A history of Stourbridge glass-making and glassware has yet to be
written. So that research, that additional delight of collecting, is
more open in connexion with glass than with any other well-known “line.”
COLLECTABLE GLASS ARTICLES
[Illustration: LARGE MUG AND COIN MUG, IMITATING OLD SILVER SHAPES]
The number and diversity of old glass articles may be indicated by the
following incomplete list: wine glasses, beer glasses, cider glasses,
rummers, cordial glasses, liqueur glasses, tumblers, firing glasses,
coaching glasses, fuddling glasses, beakers, mugs, tankards, champagne
glasses, grog glasses, Masonic glasses, goblets, Joey glasses, “boot”
glasses, “yards of ale,” toy glasses; flasks, decanters, trays and
waiters; punch or salad bowls, trifle bowls; wine bottles, spirit
bottles; jugs, punch-lifters, decanter stands; jelly glasses, custard
glasses, flip glasses, syllabub glasses; fruit baskets, centre-pieces,
sweetmeat glasses, captain glasses, comports or sweetmeat glass stands,
epergnes, tazzas; salt cellars, sugar castors, pepper boxes; caddy
sugar bowls; lamps, lanterns, chandeliers, candlesticks, nightlight
glasses, taper holders; finger bowls, wine coolers; oil bottles,
vinegar bottles, mustard bottles; jars, pickle jars; tea trays,
preserve pots; vases, covered vases; rolling-pins, knife rests, knife
and fork handles, spoons, sugar crushers; butter pots, celery glasses;
weather glasses, chemical glasses, eye baths, witch-balls, porringers,
posset vessels, holy-water vessels; door-stops, paper-weights; mirrors,
knobs, glass pictures, bellows-shaped flasks, lustres, paste jewels,
beads, taws, toy birds, animals, tobacco pipes, bellows on stands,
walking-sticks, rapiers, and other elaborate baubles and oddities
made for ornament or as _tours de force_. There seems to have been a
Glass-makers’ Festival held at Newcastle some hundred years ago, and
it was for exhibition then that most of the freak glass toys and
ornaments were made.
Much old English and Irish glass was contemporaneously sent to the
American market, and the following articles were advertised as on
sale at New York in the year 1773: “Very Rich Cut Glass Candlesticks,
Cut Glass Sugar Boxes and Cream Potts, Wine, Wine-and-Water Glasses,
and Beer Glasses, with Cut Shanks, Jelly and Syllabub Glasses, Glass
Salvers, also Cyder Glasses, Orange and Top Glasses, Glass Cans, Glass
Cream Buckets and Crewets, Royal Arch Mason Glasses, Globe and Barrel
Lamps, etc.” The “etc.” would be capacious; it would include most of
the articles mentioned in the paragraph just preceding this, and such
things as crystal globes to be filled with water through which a candle
might throw and condense its rays, for sewing or lace-making purposes,
at night.
[Illustration: (1) BRISTOL; AND (2) NAILSEA COLOURED GLASS WITCH-BALLS]
A collector ignores window-glass, unless he can come upon stained
glass, purchasing, for £5 perhaps, a leaded square or oval of
sixteenth-century Swiss or German painted glass, to hang in one of
his windows. A collector ignores plate-glass, except in the form of
mirrors, perhaps. A collector ignores carboys, and also ordinary
bottles, but he acquires when he can one of the thick, stumpy, almost
black glass bottles in which Georgian people bottled their own claret
or port, imported in the cask. It adds interest to an antique bookcase,
corner cupboard, or cabinet if the panes, or some of them, show the
slight curvature characteristic before perfectly flat sheet-glass could
be cast; and there are some old panes in which the oxides have turned
to a violet colour--a silversmith’s shop nearly opposite the top end of
the Haymarket still displays some--which are of interest to-day. There
used to be glass objects which, I suppose, we shall never come upon
now: the “mortar” or nightlight-glass, of the kind which stood beside
the last sleep of Charles I, and the “singing-glasses” which Pepys
heard in 1668, when he “had one or two singing-glasses made, which
make an echo to the voice, the first I ever saw; but so thin, that the
very breath broke one or two of them.” These, and many other beautiful
pieces of old glass, are for ever gone out of reach.
But the hunter may come upon pieces which came into existence before
Queen Anne died: Jacobean glass, of the reign of Charles II at latest,
is occasionally found. For a guinea I obtained a fine sacramental
vessel in purfled and wreathed glass bearing the symbol of the Trinity
(see next page); for 5s. a pistol-shaped scent bottle; and for 12s. 6d.
a hand lamp, all three of Jacobean date.
THE HUNT FOR IT
In fact, the limits in glass-collecting are not yet fixable; you never
know what quaint or rare thing you may not come upon in old glass.
Other lines of collecting are already systematized, and part of the
systematization is a limiting of what you may expect to find and a
raising of what you may have to pay. With glass there are no such
boundaries, at present; anything out of the ordinary in shape, purpose,
or date, may be acquired, and should be--the uncommon pieces are the
best--though often because a piece is quite unusual, it will be offered
you at a very low price. The smaller dealers know that from half a
guinea to a couple of guineas is what they may charge for an old wine
glass, according to the knobs or the spiral in its stem, but they do
not know any fixed price for less common specimens, and they will sell
at a hundred per cent. profit on the very small charges they themselves
have paid.
[Illustration: COMMUNION VESSEL, SHOWING PURFLING ON THE HANDLE, AND
“WRITHEN” ORNAMENT ON THE BOWL (DATE CHARLES II)]
Armed with knowledge of the general tests which I give in the next
chapter, a collector may enter a dealer’s shop near Bond Street or
a marine stores in the Old Kent Road, a broker’s at Hackney or a
cabinet-maker’s warehouse in a country town, a second-hand furniture
shop at Hammersmith or the Caledonian market on a Friday; he may look
into a butler’s pantry, peer into a cupboard in a kitchen corner,
search amidst the dust of a lumber-room, or reach to the deep interior
of a farmhouse dresser or sideboard; and almost always he will come
upon a collectable bit of old glass. He may hope to come upon an old
crystal gazing-ball, used by fashionable fortune-tellers a century ago;
or even one of the old glass eggs which eighteenth-century ladies held
in their hands to keep their palms cool for a lover’s kiss.
THE COLLECTOR’S RANGE
[Illustration: MASONIC ENGRAVED GOBLET, WITH CUT STEM; THE GROOVES OF
THE CUTTING ENCROACHING ON THE BOWL]
The beginner should recognize from the first that the range of the
collector of old glass is not yet defined; that the practical hints and
rules given in this book may be applied to _any_ piece of glass, and
should be, no matter how unusual its form or inexplicable now its use
in its time. During the next few years things which now seem oddities,
because they are so unusual, may become particularly sought after,
and valued because they are rare. I therefore advise the beginner to
be a general and diffusing collector, leaving no genuine old piece
unsnapped-up which comes within his reach and means. At present cut
Waterford glass and spiral-stemmed blown wine glasses are the things
most sought after by glass collectors, but they may not be so a few
years hence. I do not mean that they will ever drop in selling value
now, but I anticipate that the selling value of other glass articles,
rather neglected now, may appreciate; that is why I recommend the
practice of general and diffusive collecting and a wide range. But
if a collector prefers to specialize, he may set out to collect wine
glasses only, or inscribed glasses only, or what-not in that way; he
may go in for cut-glass only, or blown glass only, or coloured glass
only, or toys and eccentricities only; he may choose geographically,
collecting Irish glass only, or English glass only, or Bristol glass
only, and so forth. In any case his range will be limited by certain
dates; he will very seldom come upon a piece so old as the reign of
Charles II, and he will not care to collect glassware made so late
as the year in which Victoria came to the throne. With Venice-made
glass this book has nothing to do. Much old Dutch-made glass exists in
England, but the student of this book will be enabled to detect it, and
not unintentionally to acquire it believing it to be English made.
Bohemian-made glass, cut and coloured, is seldom taken up by collectors
here. The range in these islands is for English and Irish glass, for it
is the ware most readily collectable, most likely to increase in value,
and to be most readily sold when a collection comes to be dispersed;
I mention this latter consideration because any collector not wealthy
must, in justice to his heirs and dependents, in this matter “look to
the end.”
II. SEVEN GENERAL GUIDES AND TESTS
Setting forth to collect old glassware, therefore, what general guides
may the beginner use, and what reliable tests can he apply?
There are seven: (1) the _tint_ of the glass; (2) the _sound_ of the
glass; (3) the _quality_ of the glass metal (or material); (4) the
_weight_; (5) the _signs of use and wear_; (6) the _pontil-mark_; and
(7) the _workmanship_.
These seven suffice to equip the beginner. But as he collects and gains
experience, many details and developments of them will come to his
knowledge, which I shall refer to in their place.
It should be remembered that there are no maker’s marks to go by in
glass, as there are in porcelain, earthenware, Sheffield plate, or
pewter; and no signatures, as there are in paintings, drawings, and
etchings.
1. THE TINTS OF OLD GLASS
Old glass is _darkly_ brilliant. It is not _whitely_ crystal as
modern glass is; the eye can only see what it looks for, ever, and to
uninstructed eyes all glass is merely glass-colour, but the experienced
collector sees that there are many different tints and tinges in the
crystal of glass. These tints and tinges are the chief guide, test, and
principle by which one judges whether a piece of glass is one of the
nineteenth century, eighteenth century, or seventeenth century, as the
case may be.
To judge the tint, place the piece of glass upon a white tablecloth,
near to a tumbler or decanter known to be modern because of recent
purchase from an ordinary vendor of household glass. The eye, looking
for it, will then notice in the two pieces of glass a striking
difference of tint, if one of them is old, that is; the old piece is
not only darker than the white of the tablecloth, but darker than the
piece of modern glass. And _the darker (or sootier) its tint the older
the glass_, as a rule. Tint or tinge is a constant feature in old
glass, and an obvious feature directly the eye knows what to look for.
Varieties of dark tint may be detected, and by these varieties the bit
of glass may be dated, its period determined, and its age assigned.
[Illustration: HUNTING GOBLET, DOME FOOT]
If you place near each other, upon a white damask cloth, a glass of
Charles II date, a William and Mary glass, a George III glass, and a
Victorian glass, you will notice a darkening and then a whitening in
tint (though not a brightening) as your eye travels from the oldest
glass to the most modern. By “tint” or “tinge” I do not mean “colour,”
in the sense of red or green or blue; I will deal with coloured glass
later on. By “tint” or “tinge” I mean the shade of leaden, darkish
hue in the metal from which the glass article was blown or moulded.
This tint or tinge was inherent in the molten glass, before shaping
and cooling began. The metal or raw material was mixed according to
recipe--each glassworks had its own recipe--and one of the materials
was lead. The older the Georgian glass, the more impure the metal--that
is, the fuller of lead oxides--and therefore the darker; what are
called improvements in glass-mixing have gradually eliminated the
oxides, and therefore the leaden tint or tinge also; it is astonishing
how many different shades and tinges of darkness (in that sense) a
cabinet of old glass can show. In a few glasses the bowl is pale
sapphire or aquamarine colour, the stem being the tint of plain glass.
[Illustration: “TRAFALGAR” GLASS: RUMMER ON BALUSTER STEM AND RAISED
FOOT; EXAMPLE OF ELABORATE ENGRAVING]
The glass collector exercises his sight and applies the test; it
enables him to detect a counterfeit, though in shape and general
appearance it imitates the genuine antique; it is too whitely crystal,
too tintless to be old. Curio-shop windows at Brighton, for instance,
are full of frauds in glass, chiefly cut-glass, or glass moulded to
resemble cut-glass; but the chalky-white tint betrays and condemns
them, and the instructed collector will not be taken in. Also he will
recognize genuine Waterford glass by its own tinge of colour, and
genuine Cork glass in a similar way; he will see that old Dutch-made
glass, when thick, has a smeary, milk-and-watery tint, and when thin
has a flashy, meretricious absence of deep tinting: he will learn that
old Stourbridge glass was whiter than antique Bristol or Newcastle
glass, and sometimes was milky-white; in course of time and practice
he will come to be able to “date” and “place” a piece of old glass at
sight, as well as instantly to reject a fraud.
_The tints of Irish-made glass._ Glass made at Waterford, late in the
eighteenth century and early in the nineteenth, was a fine product,
often exquisitely cut: it is distinguishable in more than one way, but
has a characteristic tinge which, once seen, is unmistakable. I cannot
find exact words for it, it is not a blue nor a green nor a blackish
tint, but is something of all three, and was due to excessive presence
of oxide of lead. Nobody has done any research as to Irish-made glass,
and people suppose that Cork-made glass resembled the Waterford glass,
but that is very unlikely, because each factory mixed according to
its own recipe, and also used a different variety of each of the
raw materials common to all glass. In point of fact, Cork glass is
“duller” than Waterford, and it has quite a different, a pale, almost
dun or yellowish, tinge, particularly visible in the thicker parts;
a good many lustre-ornaments seem to have been made at Cork. Belfast
glass was yellowish, too, if we may judge by the tint of Williamite
glasses.
2. THE SOUND OF OLD GLASS
[Illustration: EXAMPLE OF FINE QUALITY ROSE GLASS. COTTON-WHITE SPIRAL.
NOTE THE ROSE LEAVES AND STEMS]
Perhaps because more lead was used in the “metal” or raw material, but
at any rate for some distinctive reason, _old English and Irish-made
glass has a more musical sound than any made abroad_. Flick or flip
with your finger-nail, or pinch near your ear, a piece of this old
ware, and _a vibrant, resonant, and lingering ring is audible_. The
thinner the part of the glass you flick the more the sound, of course;
but something of a ring should come from almost any part of the
article. Another way of producing this characteristic sound is to keep
on rubbing a wetted finger around the edge of the bowl of a wine glass
or finger bowl, till rhythmic vibration is set up, and the sound steals
forth. And it is a _bell-like, musical note_, almost the F sharp or G
sharp, or A or B of the 4th octave in a pianoforte keyboard: darkish
glass with this resonance is almost sure to be old English or Irish
made. Much eighteenth-century Dutch glass is still extant here, and is
often mistaken for English; but it need not be: thin or thick, _Dutch
glass sends out no lingering resonance_, long, clear, musical, and
true. _Dutch glass tinkles_ when you flip it, but the sound is dead a
few seconds after being born. The sound test for old English or Irish
glass is, Does it ring with a musical note that throbs, sings, and
lingers in a way to delight the ear? _The sound of old Dutch, French,
Italian, or German glass is cracked, so to speak_, though the vessel
itself is not; but
_O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!_
are lines which Tennyson might have written to describe the music of
old English and Irish glass; too much stress cannot be laid upon this
test--the _lasting_ note is the criterion.
So that now, with both tint and sound to guide us, we need not be taken
in by modern copies or old Dutch glass.
3. THE QUALITY OF OLD GLASS METAL
[Illustration: EXAMPLE OF FINE QUALITY; SHOWING THE BUTTERFLY AND THE
COTTON-WHITE WREATHING AROUND THE CENTRAL TUBE]
Italians and Frenchmen came to England in the sixteenth century to
teach the art and mystery of glass-making to our islanders; yet neither
old Italian nor French glass metal has the _quality_ of old English
and Irish glass metal. The glassware made here between the reigns of
Queen Anne and Queen Victoria had the best _quality_ of any glass
ever made in the world. But what is _quality_ in this connexion?
It means material, but it also means the manipulation of material
and the effect produced. The glass made during the reigns of the
four Georges was called “flint glass” and “lead glass”--misnomers,
perhaps, but I need not take up space here in discussing that; the
important point is that the _quality_ of the metal and the skill
of the manipulation resulted in thinness, rigidity, shapeliness, a
velvety surface, dark sheen, brilliancy, radiancy of facets when cut,
and the vibrant, musical ring of the eighteenth-century glass. Glass
made under Charles II was not so dark, and Victorian glass was whiter;
Victorian and modern English glass is of excellent quality, but is
uniform to almost a painful degree. It lacks character and diversity;
the Georgian glass was individual and original, so to speak. There were
faults in it--little air-blobs, or vesicles, that feel like pimples
on the surface, or show as bubbles within it; striations, like lines
of fibre, also; and deviations from the strict mathematic line or
curve, which were due to hand-work. But if you examine contemporary
Dutch-made, French-made, or Italian-made glass, you notice that the
same defects exist, and more numerously, while there is a flimsiness,
or a lumpiness, or a smeary look and harsh feel which are absent from
old English and Irish glass.
A specked, pimply surface, and a dull thickness and clumsy lumpiness
or flashy thin lightness, are found in old Dutch-made glass; and this,
taken in conjunction with the absence of true ring, enables a collector
to reject the old ware sent over from Holland. _The quality of the
English and Irish glass metal comes out in the surface_, too, a little;
the fingers feel the surface of an old blown wine glass to be _cool_,
_smooth_, _hard_, _and yet velvety_; while the surface of Waterford
cut-glass has a _silky feel_.
4. THE WEIGHT OF OLD GLASS
In his privately circulated book on “English Baluster Stemmed Glasses
of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries” Mr. Francis Buckley aptly
says that “English-made glasses of the first period were all light in
weight and cloudy in appearance. Some time between the Restoration and
the end of the seventeenth century, but when precisely it is difficult
to say, the English glass-makers began to try experiments with a view
to removing from their glasses this dull and cloudy appearance. Their
object was to produce a substance like crystal; and this object they
eventually achieved by introducing into their metal a large quantity of
lead.” This gave the characteristic weight.
The old Dutch glass seems light in weight, even when it is thick; _old
English and Irish glass seems relatively heavy_ even when it is thin.
_Waterford glass is especially heavy._ These differences in weight are
probably due to differences in the materials used for mixing the metal;
but whatever the cause, they aid the collector to know the real from
the counterfeit, and the old English from the Dutch. Even the thick,
clumsy glasses made here in the reign of William and Mary seem more
weighty than those otherwise exactly similar which were then brought
over from Holland.
5. THE SIGNS OF USE AND WEAR
Many fantastic pieces of old glass were made as curiosities or
ornaments, but most old glass was made for use. Glass is easily
scratched; as the wine glasses and decanters were set down upon
the hard, polished mahogany of dinner-tables, after the cloth was
drawn, and were moved, the feet of the wine glasses and the bases
of the decanters become scratched thereby. Lustre-ornaments, glass
candlesticks, or glass vases which stood upon marble or hard wood
mantelpieces, being moved when maidservants were dusting, became
scratched at the base. The collector will therefore carefully examine
those parts of a piece of glass which, if it is old, may be expected
to show the signs of use and wear caused by contact and movement upon
hard surfaces; it is well to do this by the aid of a pocket-lens--which
ought to be a glass collector’s constant companion.
_In a genuine old piece the scratches are numerous, do not all run the
same way, and are dust-coloured, more or less._ Most counterfeits show
no scratches at all, but _the more elaborate forgeries show artificial
scratches; these usually run all one way, however, or seem all to have
been made together at the same time, and sometimes these artificial
scratchings appear in parts of the glass which would not be exposed to
marking of the kind when in use_, as, for instance, inside the bowls.
Yet it is not wise to condemn and refuse as a fraud a piece of glass
which shows the other four or five general evidences of genuineness
simply because only slight scratching is evident; for the glass may
have been standing in a cupboard unused for many years, its nose put
out of joint by some change of fashion in table-ware soon after it
had been bought, and have passed into a collector’s cabinet before
coming into your hands for examination. Nor is it safe to suppose that
the more the scratches the older the piece; it may have had more than
the common amount of usage. If the glass has a “folded foot” or a
“ring-base” to stand on, the scratches will be at the very edge of the
foot, or on the ring, just where it touched the table or mantelpiece,
and there only.
6. THE PONTIL-MARK
I mention this last because it does not apply to all old glass; it does
not apply to glass that was cast or moulded, but it applies to all old
blown glass, and is a very important test and guide indeed.
The pontil-mark is either a depression in the glass, shallow, about
the size of the third finger-end, or a lump about that size, standing
up from the level of the glass around it. The pontil-mark indicates
_first_ that the piece of glass was originally blown, and _second_ that
before removing the blow-pipe the workman, as usual, attached the blown
glass to a pontil. The pontil or punt is an iron rod, joined to the
vessel by a little melted glass while the vessel is still hot. When
the time comes for taking away the pontil, it is done by contact with
cold water, which causes the glass to contract around the pontil-end
and the pontil to become detached. Glass vessels which were blown,
only, show the depression or the lump accordingly: blown-glass vessels
which were afterwards “cut” show it in part only, or not at all, if the
glass-cutter removed it: vessels neither blown nor cut, but cast in
a mould, do not show it because they never had it. In the eighteenth
century and the first quarter of the nineteenth, glass moulding seldom
took place; _so that the presence of the pontil-mark, whether it be a
hollow or a lump, usually indicates age in the vessel which shows it_.
[Illustration: UNDER-SIDE OF WINE GLASS FOOT, SHOWING THE PONTIL-MARK
AND THE HEMMED OR “FOLDED FOOT” EDGE]
In the oldest glass the pontil-hole is flaked with something which
rather resembles mica. In the oldest wine glasses the pontil-lump
stands out knobbily. In every case there are signs of the local
fracture. As a rule, the older the glass the bigger and rougher the
pontil-mark.
7. THE WORKMANSHIP
The sensible, practical adaptation to purpose and the workmanlike make
of English and Irish old glass afford another test; compared with our
native product, French glass of the same period seems meagre, and Dutch
flimsy or clumsy; Italian is fantastic and tawdry. The French and the
Italian ware was often gilded, the Dutch painted: these are features
seldom seen on English and Irish glass. In place of gilding or other
added external decoration the island ware presented a substance neither
too thin nor too thick, bowls perfectly rounded, stems strong and stout
but not bulky, too tall, or too short; feet that hold on to the table
well, and are not warped and uneven. In the freak and toy pieces, too,
the excellence of the workmanship is obvious.
III. BLOWN WARE
The blow-pipe is not so old an implement as the potter’s wheel, but it
seems to have been used 5000 years ago, in Egypt. Pliny first gave the
fanciful account of Phœnician mariners accidentally fusing carbonate
of soda with sea-sand; Dr. Johnson commented on that as follows: “Who,
when he saw the first sand or ashes by a casual intenseness of heat
melted into a metallic form, rugged with excrescences, and clouded
with impurities, would have imagined that in this shapeless lump lay
concealed so many conveniences of life as would in time constitute a
great part of the happiness of the world? Yet by some such fortuitous
liquefaction was mankind taught to procure a body at once in a high
degree solid and transparent; which might admit the light of the sun
and exclude the violence of the wind; which might extend the view
of the philosopher to new ranges of existence, supply the decays of
nature, and succour old age with subsidiary sight.”
Perhaps the first glassware was cast, or moulded, and there is no
record of when or where the blow-pipe was first used. Ancient glass
beads were probably made by moulding: probably the first glass ever
made in England (the windows at Wearmouth Church, in A.D. 675) was
cast. Not until the sixteenth century, apparently, was any blown
glass made in England, and none of it remains both extant and intact;
collectors are fortunate who come upon a piece of date so early as
the first half of the seventeenth century, even; but from the last
few years of the seventeenth century to the first few years of the
nineteenth century inclusive, English and Irish blown glass was the
best in the world. Therefore it is the _blown_ pieces which are the
most characteristic, whether blown only or blown and afterwards
engraved or cut. And the blown pieces, being intended for use, are
the more numerous, and the more readily collected; the cut and
engraved pieces, being for ornament, were more costly, and therefore
fewer--though perhaps they have been more carefully preserved.
[Illustration: MOULDED CADDY SUGAR-BASIN, AND JACOBEAN HAND-LAMP WITH
BALUSTER STEM. NOTE THE CLOUDY TINGE]
Drinking glasses are the most favoured aim of collectors and at
present are the old glass objects most frequently offered, but as
glass-collecting becomes more popular other glass objects are brought
out of cupboards and places where they have been lying neglected;
and my counsel is that a collector should acquire any piece of old
blown-glass ware which he can.
IV. CUT, MOULDED, AND ENGRAVED WARE
A collector nervous about frauds should take note that _counterfeits
of old cut-glass are much more numerous than counterfeits of old blown
glass_; the latter is forged, in the shape of wine glasses with spiral
stems, but not at all successfully. In cut-glass there is also the
confusion with moulded glass to beware of, but the finger feels the
edges of cut-glass to be slightly rough--rather like woodwork edges
not sand-papered off--and the eye can detect a difference between
what was cut and what was moulded. In fine old cut-glass the surface
feels silky, and the touch slips upon it where the cutting is shallow;
moulded glass has a wavy, rounded feel. Cut-ware glass seems to be the
more popular “line” of collecting in glass, so it is well to consider
the kinds of cutting here; remembering all the while the tests of tint,
etc., as between the old and the new.
THE ORIGIN OF CUT-GLASS
English-and Irish-made glass, being heavier and better quality than
any other, lent itself to cutting especially well; but probably the
chief cause of the development of cut-glass here was the excise duty,
which was levied on the plain manufactured article, so to speak--the
glassware as the blower or moulder turned it out. The excise on that
having been paid, all additional value given to the ware afterwards
was non-taxable; therefore cutting came into vogue, and the glass
cut in these islands became the best in the world. Of all cut-glass
“Waterford” was the most beautiful; its specific gravity was the
greatest, and deep cutting could take place without the ware being
clumsily heavy to begin with.
THE “WATERFORD” STYLE OF CUTTING
Cork, Dublin, and Belfast cut-glass resembles Waterford cut-glass
in everything but tint and weight, and perhaps it was the Celtic
strain in the Irish glass-cutters’ blood which gave a more than
English freedom and fantasy to their art. At any rate, the style of
their cutting may be described as “curved” and “arabesque”; it was
also shallow, generally; flowing lines and slight hollows, flattish
rounded curves, and interlacings are evident; stems and candlesticks
are “whittled” rather than cut deeply; rims are often surrounded by
little semicircles, the edge of each semicircle being cut into angles
with sharp points; sometimes these resemble half-open fans. The less
the amount of cut ornament, the earlier the piece, as a rule. There
is English style diamond-shaped cutting in Irish glass, and some
“hob-nail” cutting--shaped flat ends standing out as hob-nails do
from boot soles: there is some “strawberry” cutting; but as a rule, a
fluent, curving, arabesquing style of cutting, with parallel horizontal
lines, hollow prisms, upright fluting, and parallel vertical lines in
panels, the latter sometimes resembling basket-plaiting, characterize
Waterford cut-glass.
THE “STOURBRIDGE” CUTTING
The Stourbridge glass-cutters, on the other hand, rather over-did and
abused the deep, regular, machine-like repetition of the “diamond” and
the “hob-nail” and the “pomegranate.” Sometimes, however, the cutting
was flat and flowing, and a festoon-like, hung-tapestry-like form may
be seen.
[Illustration: (1 AND 2) WATERFORD, AND (3) STOURBRIDGE CUT-GLASS BOWLS]
THE “BRISTOL” CUTTING
Bristol glass-cutters went in for depth, but also for fantasy: a
leaflike arrangement may be seen: the flowing lines in “Bristol”
cutting are not so fine and curved as they are in Waterford glass.
“NEWCASTLE” CUTTING
Perhaps the “thistle” glasses, so popular in Scotland, were
made and cut at Newcastle, the nearest glass-making centre: but
“thistle cutting” does not mean cut like a thistle; it means minute
diamond-shape cuts upon a vessel conventionally resembling a
thistle-head in shape.
THE STAR AT THE BASE
In old cut-glass a star is often found, cut in the base of the vessel,
_under_ it; usually the old glass-cutters extended this star to the
very edges of the base. In more modern cutting the rays of the star do
not extend so far.
[Illustration: EXAMPLE OF “POMEGRANATE” AND “DIAMOND” CUTTING: NOTE THE
“STAR” ALSO, CUT TO THE EDGE, AND THE SCRATCH ACROSS THE BASE CAUSED BY
WEAR]
MOULDED GLASS
About 1850 moulded imitations of cut-glass begun to oust the more
expensive originals, and moulded glass of that date and since then is
not worth a collector’s attention. But _old_ moulded glass, with the
right tint in it, is worth acquiring; in the shape of candlesticks, for
instance.
Cutting could be done, and was done, either upon glassware originally
blown, or upon glass originally moulded--that is, cast in a mould.
Sometimes the stem or shank and foot were left untouched while the
upper part of the vessel was cut. Moulded glass uncut shows no
acuteness of edge nor sharpness in the depressions. Modern moulded
glass is often very elaborate, however, and the beginner may readily be
deceived.
ENGRAVED GLASS
Some part of the engraving on some glasses was really cutting: in
roses which form part of the decoration of finely engraved glasses,
the finger feels plane after plane of depression, where the engraver
deeply cut away the metal to imitate the petals of the rose. When the
engraving goes as deep as this, or deeper than usual, the effect is to
give a dust colour to the engraved work, which helps one to be sure
that the object before one is not an old plain glass recently “engraved
up” with a Jacobite or other design to make it sell for more money.
[Illustration: UNDER-SIDE OF BASIN, SHOWING THE STAR CUT TO THE EDGE]
But as a rule engraving is a surface operation, done with a diamond or
on the wheel, or by sandblast, or by use of acids. Where the engraving
is flat, not cut in, the original greyish-white effect may long remain;
a collector need not suppose that the engraving is recent because the
tint of it is not brownish, a colour due to years and accumulations
of dust. Indeed, the rougher and coarser the recent engraving the more
likely dust to settle _in_ it, as well as upon it, and to give it a
dusty tint. Really fine old engraving can remain almost as fresh in
appearance and tint as it ever was, even till to-day. _And the natural
tint of glass engraving resembles the tint of ground glass._ Of course,
when the polishing-wheel was applied, either to parts or to the whole
of the engraving, this greyish-white tint was polished away.
The polishing-wheel was also used to remove the pontil-mark (when it
was a lump or knob) from the feet of wine and other glasses.
Dutch or German engraved old glass shows more _smeary_ in the engraved
part than English or Irish glassware does.
V. OLD COLOURED GLASS
At Bristol, Nailsea, Wrockwardine, and perhaps at Norwich, glassware
of various colours was made. There are collectors who care for nothing
else but coloured glass; there are collectors who only care for
coloured glass paper-weights; there are collectors who will not buy
coloured glass at all.
“BRISTOL”
Bristol coloured glass is the most sought for. There are several
varieties. The rarest is the opaque, whitish glass which rather
resembles porcelain or Battersea enamel in general tint, and is painted
upon as if it were porcelain or enamel: held to a good light this
ware is seen to be rather opalescent, and might be dubbed opal glass.
Edkins, a painter of Bristol delft, used delft-like colours and designs
on this opal glass; wreaths of flowers (the rose and the fuchsia in
particular) and flourishes in the Louis XV style are characteristic.
Cups and saucers, teapots, tumblers, bowls and jugs, cruet vessels, and
candlesticks of this ware exist, though few; the last-named imitated
Battersea enamel candlesticks in shape and decoration. A characteristic
of this glass is ridges or waves on the surface, detected by the
finger. The earliest examples have domed and folded feet.
Less rare, but rare, are the wine glasses with red and white or blue
and white spirals in the stems which were made at Bristol; if the white
is not cotton-white but greyish, however, such a glass is probably old
Dutch.
[Illustration: BRISTOL COLOURED GLASS PEPPER BOX, SHOWING THE ELABORATE
FLOWERS, SUCH AS ARE SEEN IN PAPER-WEIGHTS]
Fine tableware of transparent blue, blue-green, red, and purple was
made at Bristol; the blue is a peculiar, unique blue, imitated but
never well reproduced; where the glass is thick, it, held to the
light, shows a Royal purple, and where thin it is almost a sea-blue.
Egg-cups of this ware are handsome. Bristol red glass is of a ruby hue,
with not so much vermilion in it as in Bohemian glass: there is also
“cherry-red” glass. Bristol blue and red glass was sometimes touched
with gilt, in lettering and lines; this did not wear well except when
embossed.
Bristol produced the finest glass paper-weights--of a size and shape
to fill the palm of one’s hand if only the wrist and finger-tips
are touching the paper--and at the base of these you see flowers of
coloured glass, bright and various in hue, and rendered with wonderful
skill; of the same kind of mosaic or tessellated glass is a small
pepper pot in my possession, a very rare example. Other Bristol
paper-weights, larger, and door-stops, still larger and heavier, were
tall ovals, two or three or four times the size of a goose’s egg and
rather resembling one in shape; the colour is a verdant or a sage
green, and the inner decoration is flower-petals and leaves, pearled
over as if by dew, and blown with extraordinary skill.
[Illustration: BRISTOL COLOURED PAPER-WEIGHTS (1) GREEN; (2) COLOURED
SPIRALS]
Collectors should beware of forgeries of parti-coloured paper-weights.
They may be known by the coarseness of the flowers inside the glass,
the lack of fine workmanship, and the tawdriness of the colours.
“BRISTOL” AND “NAILSEA”