| Object ID |
1961.54 |
| Object Name |
Bowl |
| Early Date |
1830 |
| Late Date |
1850 |
| Made By |
Redwood or Redford Crown Glassworks |
| Description |
Because of its aqua color, lily-pad decoration, and superior craftsmanship, this extraordinary large bowl of common bottle glass is though to have been made either at the Redwood or Redford Crown Glassworks in upstate New York, makers of the most brilliantly colored and finely crafted glass lily-pad bowls, pitchers, plates, creamers, and sugar bowls made in the mid-19th century.
Since Roman times, free-blown glass has been embellished by cutting, engraving, and crimping the glass, by coloring it, and by applying threading and chains to its surface. The lily-pad decoration on this bowl was achieved by partially covering a blown-glass form with a second gather of glass which was then pulled to achieve this design, a decorative technique used in northern Europe in the 1700s and practiced regularly in American glasshouses, especially in New Jersey and New York between 1830 and 1870.
By the 1830s, there were primarily three different types of glass factories in America: those which made windows and bottles; pressed glass, or fine flint glass tableware. This bowl and other free-blown objects confirm that blown glass continued to be appreciated in the 19th century despite the growing popularity of standardized pressed glass forms which were being produced in great quantity at this time. Current scholarship suggests that these free-blown forms of bottle glass were made as special pieces and sold by glass-houses in limited quantities. |
| Credit |
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph W. Limric |
|
