Topic: 19th century English paperweights ? - Old English paperweights - OE paperweights

[flying free]

I guess this is information already seen and known by  many but I've never managed to find a reference until I was searching something else last night:

source:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=65BCAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA65&dq=birmingham+exhibition+1849+millefleur&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjc3uXHpaTPAhXmAsAKHYe7AqkQ6AEIJTAA#v=snippet&q=paper-weights&f=false

The Art Journal London, Volume 11  1849 - page 33

page 33  coming under the Heading in the Journal
‘Minor topics of the month’

And under a section titled
‘Venetian-Glass Paper Weights, & c.’

I found there what appears to be a description of millefiori / millefleur paperweights, and the making/construction process of them for, ‘… paper-weights, door-knobs, tazzi & c’
The final paragraph in that description holds an interesting comment:
‘These articles are sold as of foreign manufacture, but we are assured, upon the best authority, that very large quantities of them are made in England – indeed in the metropolis – are sent to France and Germany, and bought in these countries to supply to our own markets.  This is not the only instance within our knowledge in which our manufactures find their way to the public, at a greatly advanced price, by re-importation as the productions of foreign industry.  Surely it is time that all such ridiculous prejudices should cease.’

On a similar note - in the Official Catalogue of the great industrial exhibition Dublin 1853, I found listed as exhibitors under Glass, only a few makers I recognised,and none referenced paperweights:
Richardson B - Wordsley, nr Stourbridge (Description was of very limited wares on show)
Rice, Harris and Son - Islington Glass Works Birmingham (Description of much wider variety of goods on show compared to Richardson)
F.H. Thompson - 48 Berner's (sic) street, Oxford street  (mentions silvered glass)
Percival Yates & Co (although this was a vase made by them and engraved by Bohm but actually exhibited by W White Marlboro' Street Dublin)

I've added key words to the heading so the information would be easier to find on searches.
m

[tropdevin]

***

Hi m. We did discuss related matters in a thread in GMB in 2013.  There are lot of interesting - and puzzling coments in the Art Journal, and I have concluded it is a mix of facts, errors,  prejudice, and politicking.  One comment talks about 'hundreds of thousands' of Bohemian paperweights being imported: clearly a gross exageration.  So I am not sure quite how much can be taken at face vaue.

Alan

[flying free]

Alan, yes I am well aware of the pernicious attempts by media to influence perceptions.  I read with a view of 'where is the author, and therefore the message, from', rather than taking anything at face value.

However, the one thing I was interested in is the claim that paperweights (and by the way the paragraph was written, the author appears to me to mean millefiori paperweights) were being made in England in 1849.

 I wasn't commenting on what happened to them after they were made, the market forces, the public's perception of them at the time v paperweights made in other countries, or how they were retailed in England, all of which appear to have been the gripe of the author. But the whole sentence is important as a context for the comment that they were being made in England.

I added it because I've read comments over the years but never seen the/a primary contemporary source for the comments so thought it was interesting.

To your list of reasons for  odd comments in the Art Journal, I do also wonder sometimes whether they describe items using phraseology we no longer use in that particular context, but instead for something else, which means we misunderstand what the author of that time was trying to convey? (Obviously not 'hundreds of thousands' of Bohemian paperweights).

Actually,  it is also in that same Art Journal volume on page 65 that they go on to say they have seen Islington Glass Works Birmingham compound Millefleur paperweights.

Many pages later there is a piece on Richardson Glass:
'The glass of Messrs. RICHARDSON of Stourbridge (the "Wordsley Works") which we have to consider next, is confessedly unsurpassed for brilliancy and purity by that of any manufacturer in the Kingdom; it is not too much to say that it may compete with the best produce of the Continent; certainly we saw nothing at the exhibition in Paris superior to the crystal produced at these works. 

From the collection at BIrmingham we select nine examples; our drawings convey no idea of the colour, and but little of the ornamentation, to which the articles have been subjected, either by the engraver or the cutter...'
  It also mentions that the Richardson items were the products of everyday production, not items specially made up for the exhibition.
m

[tropdevin]

Hi m

Regarding Islington, Paul Hollister gives that quote (and one that specifies Bacchus as a paperweight maker) in his 1969 'Encyclopedia of Glass Paperweights'.  There is little doubt that these two companies were making paperweights in 1849 - and little doubt that the Islington canes look French because Rice Harris brought in French glassworkers as strike breakers for 18 months.  I am pretty sure that some of them made the canes and the Islington paperweights, probably based on experience of working at Baccarat.  What intrigues me is the quote from the Art-Journal (1848) that 'we have seen a large number (of paperweights)  of home manufacture...Mr Bacchus...has produced some that deserve special notice...'.  This can only be interpretted to mean that there are other manufacturers of paperweights that they do not name.  I do not believe Islington were producing in 1848...so who was?  The problem is that there are a dozen or more candidates in the Birmingham and Stourbridge area who were high quality glass makers using 'flint glass'.  These included Richardson, Walsh Walsh, Chance, Osler, Stevens & Williams, Webb, William Gammon and others, but I have seen no evidence to indicate that any did - or did not - make millefiori paperweights: some may well have done.

Alan

[flying free]

I'm searching Richardson online as that's what I'm interested in for the art glass (vases etc) - if I find anything else I'll add it.  That's unlikely of course but you never know if an article or book suddenly gets digitised.

m

[flying free]

Alan, you have probably seen this and discounted it and  I don't know what this is as I've been unable to track it down but my search threw up this:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bM1pAAAAMAAJ&dq=millefleur+paperweight&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=millefleurs
Silhouette: Notes and Dictionary, Emily Jackson, C. Scribner's Sons 1938
page 36
'Obverse and reverse of a millefleurs (sic) glass paperweight made a Bristol or Stourbridge for the accession of Queen Victoria.  The Queen's portrait is shown over 30 times'.
Since Queen Victoria acceded to the throne in 1838 this seems very early for a millefleurs glass paperweight made at Bristol or Stourbridge (might it actually have been an 'anniversary' weight of some date?)

All I've managed to track down is  this Royal Collection search database that doesn't appear to show anything that matches that description unfortunately.
https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/search#/page/5

There is an Apsley Pellat paperweight with a young Victoria with a bun in sulphide c.1845 and probably acquired by Queen Mary
https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/search#/17/collection/3657/paperweight

Also this - Glass paperweight of horn shape with inset layer of green and pink flowers - no picture shown though
https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/search#/42/collection/93607/paperweight

[tropdevin]

***

Hi m

I fear that any book more than 50 years old contains more errors than facts when it comes to paperweights.  It is certainly true that there was a well-entrenched myth that millefiori paperweights had been made in Bristol and/or Nailsea, and the trade also believed in the 1920s that many antique French pieces came from Bristol (they thought that the B signature meant Bristol rather than Baccarat).

There were plenty of sulphide paperweights by Clichy and Baccarat with a young Queen Victoria design, but I don't think they were made for the Coronation: I think they came along 10 to 20 years later when paperweights became popular.  There are some good QV silhouettes in Old English paperweights, and what the author may have been referring to was a piece similar to the one below in our collection.  I am not sure which factory made it (though it reminds me of some Richardson pieces), but I suspect it dates to the mid 19th century, rather than 1838.

Alan

[flying free]

and on the underside can you see the queen's head?
if so that fits with the description that the queen's head could be seen thirty times.
(the trade seemed to think many glass items came from Bristol  )

m

[tropdevin]

***

Hi m

Yes - it is set in clear glass, so the Queen's Head canes are visible from above and from below.

Alan

[flying free]

So it is possibly the weight to which this author refers:
I need to read properly - the author says ' portrait is shown over 30 times'

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bM1pAAAAMAAJ&dq=millefleur+paperweight&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=millefleurs
Silhouette: Notes and Dictionary, Emily Jackson, C. Scribner's Sons 1938
page 36
'Obverse and reverse of a millefleurs (sic) glass paperweight made at Bristol or Stourbridge for the accession of Queen Victoria.  The Queen's portrait is shown over 30 times'.


m