11 minute read
Collecting Glass - Mark West
COLLECTING
I have been a dealer in glass for fifty years. However, to lay my cards on the table I have never been a collector. My wife and I have what we consider good, interesting and very usable glass that we add to and unfortunately occasionally break (!) but always enjoy.
Glass itself is a strange material; strictly a super cooled liquid, it is still active. Medieval windows will be slightly thicker at the base than the top as they are still flowing, a crack in glass will always be unstable (there is no such thing as ‘a small crack’- that is what we in the trade call ‘broken’).
Glass was probably discovered by accident. The Ancient Egyptians had glass but only used it as decorative inlays and very small moulded objects. The breakthrough came when the Romans discovered glass blowing and therefore the ability to make hollow objects that could be useful in daily life.
Glass in the Roman world was relatively common and even today, small Roman bottles (Ungentarium, used for aromatic oils in a bath house), can be bought around the £100 mark - this for a fragile 2,000-year-old item! Larger pieces are of course rarer and the Romans did make items that even today glassmakers find almost impossible to replicate, the British Museum’s Portland Vase being a standout example.
The fall of Rome meant glassmaking, along with most applied arts, virtually stopped. The Dark Ages and early Medieval periods for European glass were a desert. Some glass was still made in the Roman tradition in Persia, Damascus and Aleppo and the Byzantine Empire, but this is now incredibly rare. Even in the 12 -14th centuries, examples that came to Europe were treasured, such
GLASS
as the 14th century ‘The Luck of Edenhall’ in the V&A in London and the 7th century ‘Charlemagne’s Beaker’ at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Items such as these were even thought to have magical properties.
With the sacking of Constantinople in 1204, many items of art came to Venice as it became the main trading hub for the Eastern Mediterranean. In 1271 the glass makers of Venice were issued ‘Capitolare’ (statutes) with controls of when and where glass could be made and sold, which banned foreign glassmakers working in Venice. However, the fall of Damascus in 1400 and the Turkish capture of Constantinople in 1453 brought many skilled craftsmen to Venice and it seems some of the rules regarding foreign workers were bent.
From the 13th century Venetian glass was being traded throughout Europe. Richard II allowed Venetian merchants to sell glass from the London docks, however it is still almost impossible to firmly attribute items before about 1400. Venetian glass from the 15th & 16th centuries can still be found. Small pieces are very rare as they were used and broken but larger ‘statement’ items such as bowls and covered cups which were very costly then and were indicators of the owner’s wealth so were well looked-after and kept safe. It is
A cased red and white latticinio glass jug, St. Louis, France c.1850
possible to own a bowl that could have been bought to impress Elizabeth I on a visit!
At the most basic level, glass is boiled sand with other items added to affect melting and colour. This is call soda glass and can be made into a thin, hard body that cools fast, allowing intricate shapes and a form that allows enamel decoration. This was true from the very early times until the late 17th century. In England after much experimenting, George Ravenscroft (1632 - 1683) managed to perfect a glass that was made with an amount of lead oxide (called flint glass, lead glass or lead crystal), giving a mix that cooled slowly, was less fragile, had a brighter clearer look with a thicker body that could be cut and engraved. At a stroke England turned from a major importer of glass to a major exporter and Europe’s taste quickly changed from
All English 18th century l-r air twist c.1760, opaque twist c.1770 and plain stem c.1750
facon de Venise’ to English styles of glass.
Now to collecting. I enjoy old glass and would recommend it both as a useful and collectable item. British glass from the early 18th to the middle 20th century is some of the best in the world and is mostly open to all tastes and pockets. 18th century glasses to a modern eye look small. This is not down to conservative drinking habits but to the glut of inexpensive staff! Generally, glasses were not laid on a table because you asked a servant for a glass which you drank from then and there, and returned the glass to them then often the next drink would be in a different and often unwashed glass. The glasses were small bowl, long stem and wide foot. The earliest baluster glasses are now expensive but also objects of beauty, fetching between £1,000 - £5,000 each (and can go higher), but this still compares well with top-end modern stemware. At the other end of the century, faceted stem glasses, the last of the classic 18th century forms, can be had for as little as £100 - £400.
Glass was a luxury item, and in the 1770s, a twisted stem glass would have cost about twice the average wage at the time and many more times the wage of a domestic servant. There are however a group of glasses considered ‘tavern’ glasses such as drams (strong drink), small ale glasses (strong beer), and rummers named from the naval drink of rum and water but probably used for beer. Nowadays, these will cost £40 - £150; far less than most good modern table glass.
In the 19th century glasses became bigger and more varied in sizes and were part of a laid table. They also became available to a wider market and therefore a greater spread of quality. Regency Glass was the high point in cut decoration; heavy glass, often with a very slight grey tint, the cutting was designed to reflect light and sparkle under candle light. Gradually the cutting became less designed and rather overdone (cleverness for cleverness sake), extending into the early Victorian period. The Great Exhibition in The Crystal Palace held in Hyde Park in 1851 was a watershed moment. The major glass exhibitors showed examples of over-the-top cut glass but also a more naturalistic style with the heavy bodied blanks being engraved with floral or geometric patterns, thus letting the colour of the wine show and letting the wine enhance the decoration. At the time the best engravers were thought to be German or Bohemian, and a number
came to work in the UK and thrived, as they were allowed to engrave their own ideas rather than the usual Central and Eastern European forest scenes and castles. Names such as Muller (who worked here as Millar), Kny (whose son became Head of Design for Stuart Crystal), Palme, Keller and the best known, William Fritche (because unusually he sometimes signed his work), were all Bohemian engravers who found a place here. Examples of their work can be found in museums world- wide. Their work is collectable, very useable and currently, affordable, and because it is possible to attribute designs to names, it is an interesting collecting field.
Gradually tastes moved away from heaviness to a gentler, plainer and physically lighter style Arts & Crafts glass, from fine delicate engraved decorations of similar but mass-produced acid-etched designs, to glass finished at the kiln with no extra decoration, just the work of the blower. The wellknown designer Dr. Christopher Dresser designed decanters with small stems and feet with no added decoration because he said the wine should be held up from the table and appear to float. The London glass maker James Powell (better known by his factory location at Whitefriars), made many Arts & Crafts designs and also took inspiration from ancient glass in the British Museum in the early 20th century to make tableware that still works in almost any setting. At the same time as Arts & Crafts in the UK, the Jugendstil (Youth Style) movement in Austria and Art Nouveau in Belgium and France were ending the 19th and ushering in the new 20th century.
20th century glass has almost gone full circle, the hand-made and individually designed glass of 1900 disappeared with the horrors of the First World War and in the 1920s the style known as Art Deco came from Paris and ornately cut table glass fell from fashion, as did the prettier late-19th century and Edwardian styles. Lines became very severe and geometric with
Bottle Venice c.1350 and two beakers North German c.1450
stylised symbolic engravings as opposed to naturalistic forms. Lalique in France with their welldesigned mass-produced glass, meant that a design made in France could now be bought in New York, Shanghai or Buenos Aires and made the owner feel at the forefront of fashion. Other factories in the UK, Belgium, Holland and Eastern Europe made Art Deco on a more individual and less profitable level and probably offer a collector with their own taste a more rewarding time.
After World War Two, austerity brought back a pared down version of Art Deco with some well-known artists and architects designing for the major manufacturers. The upturn in the economy in the 1960s spawned a flowering of art glass makers. Scandinavia was the driving force but Bohemia, the UK, the US and Australia were also major centres. However table glass generally regressed to loosely designed cut glass, with manufacturers making several slightly different types of glass, persuading
people that sherry, port and desert wine glasses were different things in order to sell more. It is also worth noting that very little glass pre-1940 was marked by the factory which is generally quite a good guide to age. Exceptions are usually in pressed glass - Sowerby in England, Lalique in France and Pyrex in the USA.
Glass strangely is fashionable, the 18th century stem types were fashion (and tax) lead, the Regency, Victorian and Arts & Crafts dictated the 19th century and Art Deco and two World Wars, the 20th. Wine glasses have become bigger and in the late 20th century became stupidly large! In my career, Champagne glasses have gone from small flutes, to large flutes, to open late 19th century style ‘coupes’. Flutes are actually a white wine glass (Champagne is a white wine - your choice!). Whiskey (no one drank Whisky until Victoria made Scotland fashionable!) was drunk from a small (full) stemmed glass, as was Brandy, beer was in ceramic or metal mugs or tankards. Today we have nearly 300 years of glass to choose from, so spend time doing some research and find out what you like.
Using antique glass is fun - you can imagine whose lips and hands have been there before you and the history the glass has seen! To know what the glasses were originally used for is important but finding a new modern use is for your imagination. Rummers can become wine glasses, ale glasses become desert wine, expensive long stem early glasses liqueur or even Sake or Brandy, 19th century wine flutes for white wine and so on.
Decanters are not often used today, but why not? There is very little red wine these days that needs decanting to remove sediment, but it does however need to breath, and the fastest way to breath a red wine is to pour it into a decanter. It also then looks more interesting and saves possibly embarrassing glances at labels! Customers will often ask me if ‘lead’ in lead crystal can leach into the wine - yes it can but it takes so long (months or even years) that if your wine has become contaminated you deserve to be poisoned! As an aside, the Victorians made wonderful Champagne jugs as Champagne was used as a table wine and drunk flatter and less chilled than nowadays. These jugs were often beautifully engraved and now make fantastic red wine jugs. A decanter that looks cloudy inside will not ‘wash out’ - the cloudiness is in rather than on the glass. It can be cleaned but at a cost; cloudy is not dirty!
As a dealer in antique glass I am of course, a fan. At home, we use antique glass as our everyday table glass. Drinking glasses are designed to be handled, unlike a plate or furniture, and they should feel comfortable in your hand. Much expensive modern glass is unbalanced, with all the weight in the bowl so that when you add liquid the whole thing becomes unwieldy. When buying glass, your fingers will tell you as much as your eyes; never be afraid to ask to handle glass (it does not bite!). Talk to dealers you trust. Our job is to tell you what something is but even if you are told something is unique and valuable, if you do not like it, do not buy it!
All items from stock Mark J West - Cobb Antiques Ltd www.markwest-glass.com westglass@aol.com by appointment
