Topic: E.Varnish mercury glass with embossed seal, circa 1849

[flying free]

Could we correct post #231 please?

Kidd's patent was not Thomas Kidd.  According to the Juries reports it was a W. Kidd.

Thank you.
[Mod: corrected]


The big Whitefriars book?  Sounds hefty - hopefully there is a good index?
It isn't one I have, so thank you for looking.

m

[flying free]

Topic:  Where was the glass blown?

As per the other thread where I mentioned the CH British Glass 1800-1914 experiment about sucking on the pipe to make the bowls of the double-walled glass -
Apsley Pellatt of Falcon Glassworks London (one of the only two glassworks still in London at the time of the Great Exhibition I think -
 Falcon and Powell's) - had a worker who did this didn't he? Remember he mentioned it in his book, in the bit about making sulphides?

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-DdRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA14&dq=kidd%27s+patent+embroidered+glass&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjNq56HsLfXAhUBfhoKHV_iCawQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=kidd's%20patent%20embroidered%20glass&f=false

and we all laughed.  But now Tom has confirmed on the other thread that it is indeed possible, and so has Charles Hajdamach.

I'm not sure about how much coloured glass he was making though.  There is the Alhambra chandelier in red white and blue I suppose - that's mentioned a lot in the descriptions of the Exhibition glass from English glass makers.

m

[KevinH]

m, your link in the previous post is for W Kidd's patented "whatsit thingy", not to Pellatt's book.

Regarding the "sucking out of air through a blowpipe":

Apsley Pellatt of Falcon Glassworks London ... ... had a worker who did this didn't he? Remember he mentioned it in his book, in the bit about making sulphides?

In the book, Pellatt did not say anyone at the Falcon glassworks did that, or even knew how to do it. The reference was just to how he (Pellatt) explained (or made an assumption about) a Venetian process of "air sucking" to collapse a double walled structure around millefiori canes. His diagram appeared to be related to forming a millefiori Tazza rather than the "Venetian Balls" (paperweights) of the Bigaglia type, which was the main subject of that section of the book.

Edited 12 Nov 2017 for correction:
The text above, now with strikethrough, was based on a focus for "double walled" glass. The point about air exclusion for enclosing sulphides ("Cameo incrustation") was well stated by "m".  Page 120 of the Apsley Pellatt book describes and illustrates the process which includes:
   "The workman next applies his mouth at the end of the tube, o, ... but instead of blowing, he exhausts the air, thus perfecting the collapse ... causing the glass and composition figure to be of one homogeneous mass ..."

I apologize for my error in focus.

[flying free]

oh sorry about the link  - and sorry to make you check about the air thingy in Pellatt.
mm, I'll think on that.

m

[flying free]

This is a link to the ringstand and other items sold through Woolley and Wallis.
It's a Saleroom link so the pictures enlarges and then can be scrolled in to enlarge further.

This means it's possible to see the mold outlines on the amber silvered bowl in the middle and the green ribbed salt.

The ring stand was the only item in the Parkington sale however the blurb says that some items had Hale Thomson and E Varnish plugs.

There is another molded item (wineglass cooler) in CH British Glass in a similar cross hatch  molded decoration. Charles calls this 'honeycomb'.  There are two molds from Thomas Webb's (The Platts) one introduced in 1847 and one in 1850 that would have fit this design and they are called 'Diamond' and 'Large Diamond' (pp432) .  I'd say that is a better description of the molded design on both pieces than honeycomb?
So the one in the book is possibly from the same mold as the bowl in the Woolley and Wallis sale?

The molded decorated pieces in this sale MAY be Varnish or Thomson pieces so are worth investigating further as a possible source of maker id. 
The amber and green items appear to also both be cut, but no silver showing so it's possible they were single colour blown into a mold.

Sale room sale click here for large pictures of group

[flying free]

Topic: Where was the glass blown -

Diamond Dip molds:


They do not appear to have been a that scarce in the 1840s 

Apsley Pellatt talks as though they are a kind of standard practice  - see page 112

click here


Cased coloured glass:

See also page 127 for a description (book published 1849) that cased coloured glass cut through to clear was mostly the province of Bohemia, Bavaria and France but that Falcon Glass works had recently successfully achieved this:

click here


From CH British Glass 1800-1914:
There were cased and cut back pieces shown from Bacchus at the exhibition pp92 and pp87 (white over colour it seems) as well as a goblet engraved by Muckley at the Richardson factory in a red cut to clear cased item pp90 and some blue over clear pp83 and 84 c.1844 from Richardson; and possibly some from Rice Harris.

  Possibly others as well - I've not done a complete check or list,but some of the other pieces in the book seem to be written up as 'possibly by' or 'probably by' i.e. not definitive and there is a comment that deciding which were English, or rather Bohemian or French can be very difficult.


These are just my thoughts:

I suppose what I am thinking is that the Bohemians had at that point had decades of casing glass and engraving  and cutting it.
The French had had the political backing and the will to develop coloured glass and cased glass.

Was it that easy to case glass at that point?  The casing process, the annealing rates of the different colours etc.  all took experimenting to do and the English factories had been under the glass excise laws until, what, 1845?

iirc, Charles does say in the book that he believes the English were developing coloured glass around the same time as other countries were,  but I wonder how far forward that was by comparison, in terms of casing and colour development?  I mean, I can find you hundreds of Bohemian Biedermeier pieces in colour and in various different developments of casing etc.  and they are widely quoted in the literature around the Great Exhibition as a comparison of colour and how great it was and how  we were 'catching up' as it were. 
But I would be pushed to find you numerous examples of English cased coloured glass from that period.  If it was that developed where are they?

m

[KevinH]

Please see the correction in my Reply #242.

[flying free]

A report here from the Birmingham exhibition held in 1849 mentions Rice Harris' coloured glass:
see page 314 and 315

click here

[flying free]

Looking at the vase in the V&A again:

Why does it have a metal collar around the base of the trumpet before it meets the elongated knop area above the foot?


http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O6482/vase-hale-thomson-f/

Did they have to cut it open to fill the knop with silver?

- The foot was presumably an open foot so easy to silver, add an inserted cone shaped piece in a similar shape and then seal the two foot pieces together with cement then add a silver foot rim to cover it. 

- The trumpet body of the vase would have been easy to insert a glass upside down cone shaped insert, after silvering the internal walls of the trumpet, then seal with cement and add a silver rim around the top to finish it.

- but no way of getting to the elongated knop without cutting the vase in half to expose an opening in the knop to silver it.  So perhaps that's what they did then resealed with a metal collar?

m

[flying free]

Topic:  where was the glass made?

Drayton's process for silvering glass was reported in Belgium in 1850 and his patent ratified in 1849 was noted.
I think this report is from a Museum.
There is more information about another development of silvering glass based on Drayton's but improved/different as far as I can see with other names noted.
No Thomson is mentioned and it appears to be all about silvering glass, but not about double walled glass.

See page 169 and 210

click here

So the developments in silvering using silver nitrate were seemingly well known - note in the court case that  Varnish mentioned going to Belgium.