DECANTERS
During most of the eighteenth century wine came to table in bottles; “decanting” began to be the fashion about 1780, perhaps. The decanters of that date have sloping shoulders as a rule; some in shape resemble a drawn glass with short stem reversed; a little later decanters became more globular and high-shouldered, with shorter necks. Engraved festoons on a decanter, as indeed upon a wine glass, usually indicate the “Empire” period by their decoration—the end of the eighteenth century, if not the beginning of the next. It must be said, however, that some “Jacobite” decanters exist with long necks and globular bodies; so difficult is it to find a rule without an exception in old glass. These Jacobite decanters have pointed stoppers, too; whereas oval rounded stoppers seem generally to have been the early form.