Topic: Diamond, Fan & Facet Cut Stemware

[Pinkspoons]

Acquired a partial suite of these glasses recently as part of a large collection of glass that was mostly 1850-1950 and predominantly Danish and Swedish... with a few odds and sods of more recent Waterford, Moser, Crystalex and Spiegelau.

I've only 3-4 factories that I'm not yet managed to track down, and this is one of them.

They are (I assume) white wine, dessert wine and liqueur glasses, deeply cut with a simple fan/diamond pattern, with a facet cut stem that extends to the underside of the bowl. The bowl rim is fire-polished. The largest glass is 16cm / 6.25".

They're a nice weight, with bright glass and precise cutting. There is a fair amount of base wear to the heavier wine glasses - the kind that's very light but densely packed that you get from extended use rather than mishandling.

I've more or less ruled out Holmegaard, although they were producing similar shapes and cuts in the first quarter of the last century. I assume these are from a similar period.

Thanks for looking.

[Pinkspoons]

Six months on, and the closest I have is that they're probably Swedish, probably 1880-1900, and possibly Kosta.

I've not yet found any exact matches, though.

[Paul S.]

well, I'd agree with the 'possibly Kosta' comment  -  if you look at page 170 in 'Smoke & Ice' by Vigier and Pina, you'll see the full page reproduction of a vintage Kosta advertisement showing what they call their "21 most popular services".               These appear to be mostly items from suites of cut drinking glasses, and some show faceted cut stems exactly like yours, with similar foot and bowl shapes, although don't think I can see your exact cut pattern  -  but some are quite similar, and with this rather sparse amount of cutting .
Am assuming this ad. was current around the middle of the C20.

However, my opinion would not be that your glasses originate around the last couple of decades of the C19  -  mainly because designs around that period were influenced by the  fashion for arts and crafts and art nouveau designs - not this rather meagre abstract type of cutting ...............    of course it could be that the Swedes had nothing to do with those styles, which might give your suggestion some truth, and my knowledge of Scandinavian cut glass in the closing decades of the C19 is almost non-existent to say the least.

My thoughts on date are very speculative and just an opinion, but I'd be inclined to go more for 1920 - 1950's

[Pinkspoons]

I do have Smoke & Ice, but it's been packed away in a box... somewhere... and hasn't been seen for a couple of years. 

But Swedish/Danish stemware of the late C19, as far as I've seen, never really caught the A&C/Nouveau bug - it was predominantly quite traditional / conservative in flavour until after WWI.

The few scraps of Kosta's 1896 catalogue I can find in books and online show a variety of glasses with quite spare cutting - like so:

http://glasnamn.se/Kosta/victor.html
http://glasnamn.se/Kosta/carnot.html

And the broad shape itself can be found from various Scandinavian glassworks in various guises from around the 1870s onwards. Holmegaard's iteration was called 'Pfeiffer', and Kosta's was 'Njordenskjold' (with the latter being a lot closer to mine):

http://www.hardernet.dk/Stemware/Pfeiffer-Holmegaard_1900-1934.htm
http://glasnamn.se/Kosta/nordenskjldfina.html

[Paul S.]

sorry to hear about the books - you'll have to dig them out again.

the links are interesting, thanks, although not entirely sure I follow exactly which patterns are specifically from the 1896 catalogues - perhaps it is those older looking drawn images only.       
The 'Smoke & Ice' reproduction of the factory advert doesn't give a date, but certainly there a few patterns showing in your links that also occur on the Kosta page in the book, although suspect these are not from the late C19.

We could tick on for ages discussing differences in cutting styles etc. that can be seen in the more than one hundred years that have elapsed since 1896, and still end up not a lot wiser.              Perhaps like some of the British Stuart cut designs, there are Kosta patterns that have also survived for long periods.
Coming back to the full page Kosta ad. in 'Smoke & Ice', there is a square footed (late C18 style) drinking glass called (I think) JUNIOR med guld - these have gilding on the rim - I wonder if the factory reproduced other antique styles in the C20.

Regret I don't know about present Swedish glass factories still working or not  -  is it possible that you could write to someone there?

[Pinkspoons]

Yes, sorry, the drawn pictures are from the 1896 catalogue.

There seems to have been a trend in Denmark - so very possibly also in Sweden - for antique-style glasses in the early 1950s, and again in the mid 1970s. Holmegaard certainly raided their archives and reissued a few 'old standards' in these periods.

And, as you say, some traditional designs simply clung on into modernity.