Topic: Cut Glass Motif categorisation - Collaborative experiment?

[Frank]

I need to start categorising cut glass in one of my sites (Glass Catalogue) as I will be listing thousands of pieces. The only reference that I can find, offhand, is Cut and Engraved Glass 1771-1905 by Dorothy Daniel, 1950. Which has two pages of motifs, which are given US and English/Irish names... i.e. Hobnail, Strawberry Diamond (UK = Cross-cut or chequered Diamond.) And another book with specific Irish names.

Is the Daniel naming convention still used currently or are their alternatives? I also need names in other languages but that can be added later.

Is there a standard way of describing patterns that have a combination of motifs or is the pattern name/number usually used?

If I end up being forced, through copyright, to draw the motifs for use, any volunteers to do the drawing? The result will be put into the public domain and free to use on any website or publication.

[Frank]

There is a new edition of the book A GUIDE TO AMERICAN CUT AND ENGRAVED GLASSWARE by James M. Havens about to be published that clearly has a more modern list of motifs (as used in US Glass), so there is a lot more recent research than in my cut glass poor library! Although my library does have some stunning cut glass catalogues from Spain, France, Belgium, UK, Germany and Bohemia - all to be digitised of course.

How you can help: :angel:

Have a look in your glass books for any that contain a guide to the motifs for whatever country/region and report back here.

Once I start to build the list and illustrations, there will be a need for pictures of examples.

I will consult with those authors to build a comprehensive table of motifs and make these freely available to anyone that wants to use them.

What I will do with the list and any pictures:

Publish in the GlassCatalogue.com and any other website of mine where it would prove useful.

Enrich the internet experience for glass lovers 

[David E]

I can't help thinking that a collaboration with someone having experience in cut glass is a requirement! Stating the obvious there...

I would also suggest that if you go down the route of drawing the motifs (eeek!), to do it is a vector format. However, this would depend on people having the software, and the experience to us it.

I would offer my help, apart from having so little time

[Frank]

I think diagrams will be easier to understand than photos but I would be able to illustrate each motif with additional close-up photographs of pieces. The value of doing it on the web is that you can exploit multiple routes to illustrate.

The diagrams can of course be traced from photographs or existing line drawings. As only my most modern catalogues rely on photographs, there will be plenty of line drawings to chose from. In general those drawings or not precision works so can be readily improved.

I know we don't have many here with knowledge on cut glass, so we can start slowly and try and get some with the knowledge on board.

[Frank]

Examples all from Stevens and Williams catalogue circa 1895 to illustrate the problems. Obviously it is not always possible to be certain from line drawings if a piece is cut, etched or engraved but that is not part of the motif descriptions. Stems are also a separate issue but serve to illustrate some of the issues I face in categorising catalogue contents!

	Fluted	plain stem. Service 13832
	Fluted	how is this stem described. Service 18914
	Puntie, Bulls-eye, Roundlet	Service 18913
	Puntie, Bulls-eye, Roundlet	Service 18911
	Puntie, Bulls-eye, Roundlet	Service 18912, what about the stem?
	Strawberry diamond AND fringe?	Service 19033
	Cut, etched or engraved?	Service 18129
	Cut, etched or engraved?	Service 13777
	Cut or engraved?	Service 13721
	Mechanical cut or engraving?	Service 13651/td]
	Mechanical cut or engraving?	Service 18128
	Fluted with a band through the flutes?	Service 19034
	Etched or engraved, no way to tell	Service 18142
	Multiple Motifs	Service 18141

All images courtesy The Glass-Study

[Frank]

I have thousands of original catalogue images of cut engraved and etched glass from dozens of original catalogues to add into the 'Glass Catalogue' and I need to find how to categorise their motifs so that it is possible to bring up a page of similar patterns side by side.

[josordoni]

whatever... it is useful for me too!   :clap:

[krsilber]

Frank, sounds like an interesting idea, though I'm still a little unclear about what exactly your plan is.  Am I understanding it correctly that you plan to digitize the images in "some stunning cut glass catalogues from Spain, France, Belgium, UK, Germany and Bohemia," and put them on your website?  I'd love to see that!  Are the motifs you mention going to be the basis on which you categorize the images (i.e. a Vesicas category, a Pinwheel one, etc.)?  Is the purpose to enable identification?

I'm not a member of your sites, though I have stumbled across the Study Room in the past and wished I were.  I don't know the arrangement of your Glass Catalogue.  Does it allow searching?  Could the motifs then be used as search words, so you could do a search for "hobstar and vesica and crosshatch" or something along those lines?

My main glass passion is engraved glass, but know a wee bit about rich cut glass as well and have several books about American Brilliant Period cut glass.  I also have a friend who's into it in a big way, with LOTS of references.  I can contact her, and maybe we can discuss with you your project in greater depth and help out.

"I can't help thinking that a collaboration with someone having experience in cut glass is a requirement!"  Very true!  It's a tough subject, rife with duplicate patterns by multiple makers, unsigned pieces, reproductions, and 1000s of very complex designs.

Is your focus here on rich cut mostly, or does it extend to engraved glass?  "Cut glass" covers a very wide range of wares!

[Frank]

Once I have moved the Glas Catalogue will have its own one site subscription, the Glass-Study membership covers all three sites.
The organisation of the Glass Catalogue, which will cover many countries, is similar to the way Caithness glass is organised on Scotland's Glass by:

catalogue name, although original pages are indicated you cannot see the original page layout.

Period, 10 year periods to 1930 then 5 year periods.

Type of object, vase bowl, jug, drinkware etc, some with further breakdown

Cut glass patterns - This and the next two, I will need help to categorise deeper.

Engraved glass patterns

Etched glass pattern

Regions, currently 5 covering the globe that could be further subdivided by country and even further.

Non-glass, to include fittings etc., advertised in glass catalogues.

Further categorisation is possible too, as needed by the community. As to numbers, I have around 100 catalogues some of which are massive, the total number of patterns to be listed will be somewhere in the range of 100,000 to 250,000.

Textual components of the catalogue and any discussion will be in the Glass-Study only.

If someone (perhaps 2) wanted to commit to researching the cut glass motif categories, covering US & UK terms and attach the linkages of each item to the appropriate category/ies they can have free membership. Currently expecting completion by 2012 but that may slip by a year or so.

The hope is for it to be free to access eventually, but it can only be achieved if I work full time and hence it has to be subscriber based until a large enough fund exists to maintain it. With additional income from selling images for book use.

All the images are restored and generally much larger than the example thumbnails above.

[Nancy128]

Frank, email me.  I might have some thoughts on categorizing ABP.  I have been dealing with ABP for several years.  The only problem I see is that I have over 70+ catalogs of different cut glass houses, but they are specifically from the American Cut Glass Association which I am a member of.  I'm not quite sure where the legal aspects of all of their efforts, time and money in my "sharing" these catalogs without consent.  This is an dot.org and they make some of their money through these catalog sales.

There is another alternative, I have a friend that has pulled all the "legal" copyrights from archives and I have gone through and have identified the patterns and I'm in the process of giving examples on her website.  This might be of some help to you, bypassing the ACGA organization.