Topic: Vocabulary: Describe this wine-glass in not less than 100 words!

[Jay]

I need to improve my vocabulary so that I can describe my glass collection better, and like a previous poster I'm not finding it online.

I'm working on a system which will identify (some of the) patterns in Dutch stemware (wineglasses and tumblers).
I will need to describe each tiny feature!!

'Bowl', 'stem' and 'foot' and 'rim' aren't too tricky! (and their usage can be intuitive), and I can describe the colours, engravings, etc.

However I will need to develop more detailed terms for all the other characteristics and features.

What's the name for the 'join' between bowl and stem (or stem and foot)?

Stems come in all shapes including 'baluster' stems: (They bulge at the top or in the middle or at the bottom of the stem). Is there any established vocabulary for describing their proportions, etc?
Stems might be cut or faceted, sometimes they have an extra 'feature' added at the top and/or bottom of the stem.
Any words for this?

Are there any standards for describing curves and parabolas which could be made to function for this sort of purpose?
Are there ANY words which can be used usefully without conflicting or becoming obscure.
'Recurve' 'flared rim', 'egg-shaped', 'pear-shaped', 'convex'. I'm finding it very hard to determine whether is any real standardised useage.

Of course, I can always be inventive and make my own definitions but would much prefer to find an existing and proven 'methodology'.

Perhaps there is an author whose descriptions of glassware are clear, and whose technique is worth imitating?!

[Lustrousstone]

Don't you mean not more than 100 words  . I don't know much about glasses but in writing about old glasses, there seems to be defined terminology for stem and bowl shapes. Maybe there is something in Frank's glass study to help

[David E]

Miller's Antique Glass, Mark West, ISBN: 9781840002829 is a good resource for terms. Also Great-Glass.co.uk contains some good definitions:

http://www.great-glass.co.uk/glass%20notes/drink.htm

I'd also support Christine's suggestion to subscribe to: www.glass-study.com

Sorry, I've run out of words...

[Jay]

Nobody loves a critic but actually the great-glass page rather shows my problem. (of course I'm not trying to describe 18th or even 19th century glasses ;-))

Sometimes the words seem to refer to ariel/plan view of the object, sometimes to the profile view? Are the illustrations defining the 'foot' to be applied to the internal shape or the external shape? (This pairing of inside and outside shapes is not necessarily associated in the same way for Dutch glass, e.g. a 'terraced' external profile often has a solid foot!)
Likewise, I am supposed to an see an eggshape in the illustration 'Ovoid'? Which end of the egg? The bottom part of an egg is spheroid, isn't it? Am I trying to find an egg-shape inside the bowl or on the outside of the glass? When does it stop being spheroid and start being ovoid?
The pics are not very helpful since they don't indicate what part of the illustration is being referred to.
What is 'stepped' about? what technique or shape is being shown in the blurred illustration? This is a description of an exterior profile feature?
I'm not sure how 'ogee' as shown here compares to the usage of the same term for furniture?

I looked at a couple of miller publications without finding anything relevant at all.
I suspect my question is unanswerable, or better said, that it is impossible to standardise terms and meanings that are already quite loosely defined, and I'll have to start on a (more strictly defined) vocabulary of my own, to make it fit for purpose. 

[Frank]

The terms are mostly defined by auction houses and borrow heavily from furniture and architecture. The vocabulary is fairly established. I am not aware of any illustrated on-line guide to the terminology and would recommend you get a number of books on the subject. American terminology is reasonably well catered for but for English you would be best to buy in as many of the older titles as you can afford in order to get a full understanding.

This is one of the cheaper ones with copies on Abebooks at just under $100 http://www.glass-study.com/cms/index.php?option=com_jombib&task=showbib&id=1438

Generally with this area the books you need tend to be rare as the collectors are eager for them. Education is not free.

There are about 70 titles listed in the bibliography but that is incomplete. In due course some of the rarer titles will be digitised in the Glass-Study.

[krsilber]

What is the purpose of your descriptions, and the audience?

I would think you might want to use a more recent reference than the 1926 one Frank cites, though I don't know how much the terminology has changed.

You might try going to a museum site.  Often if they provide online access to examples from their collections, they also show the descriptions they use in their own catalogues, which are quite detailed.  This is a search for "goblet" on the Corning Museum of Glass site (under "Browse Collection"):
http://www.cmog.org/collection/info.php?page=0&v=1&s=goblet&type=all&t=objects&f=&d=
Of course, that's American terminology, some of which is different from British English.

[Jay]

This is a lot better, and restricts itself to definable terms. 

I'm trying to devise a 'matrix' so that people will be able to identify their Dutch stemware (which is a total of perhaps 500 patterns but  if I can guide people to identifying the most popular 80 of them from a text based search of the database then I'll already be a happy man!).

[josordoni]

I was advised that Bickerton* is the standard for terminology and usage in the UK trade, and the shapes of bowl stem and foot shown on all the glass sites that cater for old drinking glasses are all taken from Bickerton.

Eighteenth Century Drinking Glasses by L M Bickerton.  Now out of print, I got mine from Abe books secondhand.

[KevinH]

This is another of those fascinating subjects that crops up within the GMB from time to time.

My own limited experience has shown that there has been much variation in what is presented in "regular" literature. For example the following gives a comparison of numbers of types of Bowl, Stem, Knop and Foot illustrated or described in three not-quite-random selections from my (small) collection of books, with the Great Glass website also included:

Glass Through The Ages - E. Barrington Haynes - 1949 (revised 1959)
Bowl ... 28, Stem ... 23 (includes Knop), Foot ... 12

Eighteenth Century English Drinking Glasses, An Illustrated Guide - L. M. Bickerton - 1971 (revised 1986)
Bowl ... 14, Stem ... 16 (includes Knop), Foot ... 6

An Illustrated Dictionary of Glass - Harold Newman - 1977
Bowl ... 22, Stem ... 30, Knop ... 24, Foot ... 19

Great Glass website - Philip and Ann Petrides - 1999 to present
Bowl ... 15, Stem ... 10, Knop ... 12, Foot ... 6

From just those few references it is clear that there is much variation in numbers covered but it is not easy to understand why some forms were, or were not, included. One thing that has puzzled me (but which I have never tried to follow up) is whether or not the difference in numbers between Haynes and Bickerton gives a true reflection of "English" vs "Other".

However, the Foot illustrations in Great Glass are actually the same as shown in Bickerton's book. Therefore the point that Jay rightly makes about a solid terraced foot is answered by the fact that both Great Glass and Bickerton show only "18th C. English" forms. I have made this comment not to specifically answer Jay's question (which may well have been rhetorical) but to show the sort of problem that can arise when researching information from limited sources.

But who amongst us has a full set of literature from which to draw inspiration? Frank's Glass Study is impressive but, as he says, is incomplete. And I am sure that Adam Aaronson won't mind me saying that, having seen (some of) his collection of books on glass, I realised how lacking my own collection was, and still is.

On the general question of what is it that is being described in text or images, I believe it has always been the case that it is the external form. Where an internal element is of particular interest it has usually been described as an additional aspect - such as the capacity of the bowl of a "toastmaster glass" (also described as a "deceptive bowl") or the shape / size of a "tear bubble" in a stem.

[josordoni]

And since this is my current area of interest, let me tell you I am finding it a minefield...

when is a sherry a port or is it a small wine?

When is an ale a dwarf or a short?

When is a deceptive really a penny lick?

What makes a funnel a funnel and not a trumpet?

and as for balusters, light balusters and balustroids.....



years of handling glass that is what it all takes......I am not sure I have enough time left....