Old Glass and How to Collect it

by J. Sydney Lewis

rays of light than any other kind of glass, and consequently lent itself specially to cutting—the workmanship bringing out the beauty and brilliancy of the metal, and the quality of the metal enhancing the effect of the cutting.

It is difficult to fix, with any degree of precision, the date at which glass was first cut by way of ornamentation. There are certainly traces of its employment towards the end of the seventeenth century. At the beginning the craftsmen of Bohemia were probably far superior to those of England, but as soon as the special suitability of the English glass was demonstrated, the native workmen speedily outdid all foreign competitors. The quality of the glass and of the cutting gradually improved, until at the close of the eighteenth century practically all English glass of any importance was ornamented in this fashion, and the English product was famous all over the Continent.

In this way the beauty and value of a piece speedily came to depend upon the amount and the depth of the cutting: the more deeply and profusely it was incised the greater its artistic merit was assumed to be and the more highly it was esteemed. In certain instances, undoubtedly, the art was carried to excess; hence those monstrosities of the Early Victorian period—clumsy masses of flint glass cut into hob-nails, facets, pyramids, and spikes of all shapes and dimensions. Of this description are the massive glass chandeliers which depend from the ceilings of country houses and halls built at the close of the eighteenth or the commencement of the nineteenth century. Possibly no better examples could be found than the massy centrepieces with their pendent drops and spiked clusters that adorn the Pavilion at Brighton—that lordly and pseudo-Oriental pleasure-house built by the “first gentleman in Europe,” who afterwards became George IV. Of similar type are the lustres with their jingling drops that ornamented so many mantelpieces in our grandmothers’ and great-grandmothers’ day.

How often in a theatre has one sat in fear and trembling lest some such great glittering mass in the centre of the dome should break loose from its moorings and fall with dire effects on the pit and stalls below?

It was under the same conditions that bottles altered their shape and became decanters. These, as will be seen from the illustrations, followed the prevailing fashion in being massive and deeply cut. The stoppers were most frequently of a mushroom shape and were often delicately cut. These decanters were generally made in pairs or in sets of four.

From what has been said it will be evident that the glass-making activities of the eighteenth century were by no means confined to the manufacture of drinking glasses. There is no reason to doubt that, even at so early a period as that in which Chiddingfold was a great centre of glass manufacture in this country, many important and really fine pieces were produced. Few examples, however, of what may be termed miscellaneous eighteenth-century glass can be attributed with any certainty to a period earlier than the sixties of that century. At that time the glass-maker’s art was passing through a great period of upheaval and momentous change like the country itself was in both politics and in art. Nor was the change confined to England. In France the florid style of decoration associated with the name of Louis Quinze was giving way, even before the death of the monarch after whom it was named, to the more simple and severely classical style of Louis Seize. In England the dawning of a new taste in artistic decoration became evident about the year 1770 in the work of the silversmiths and goldsmiths, and shortly afterwards in the productions of the porcelain factories of Bow, Chelsea, and elsewhere. In glass a noticeable feature of the change was the increasing use of faceting. Flat facets, divided by sharp angles, are to be found on both stems and shoulders of the glasses, and oftentimes extended half-way up the body itself. Dishes and basins of this period were often completely covered with pyramidal designs so deeply incised that the ware could hardly be handled without danger of breaking.

It was about this time, too, that cutting was first done by machinery in the manner already described in Chapter I. The fact that the art of cutting and engraving reached its zenith at this period accounts for the reputation which English glass speedily achieved not only in its native home but on the Continent and in the New World.

There is no doubt that much of its popularity was due to the superiority of the material itself, and this was maintained by the most scrupulous care in the selection and purification of the ingredients. The sand, in particular, was most carefully washed and burned so as to destroy all impurities. In practice, most of it was obtained from Alum Bay in the Isle of Wight, from Lynn or from Reigate. Sandpits have also been discovered at Coulsdon and Redhill. The fusing of the ingredients was also a matter demanding the greatest care so as to ensure the correct colour. It was found that, generally speaking, the quicker the operation the better the result. Any delay, too, in the blowing or rolling of the glass was apt to interfere with the purity of the colour and even the precision of shape and the accuracy of the measure.

Few persons troubled to consider whether shapes that depended upon the process of blowing were the most suitable for their purpose, or whether the cutting and engraving were not sometimes overdone.

On the whole, it is difficult to overrate the beauty of Georgian glass—of the early or the late period—either as regards grace of shape or style or the cutting and engraving.