Topic: English Kuttrolf Decanter w/ 'Icy' Surface Effect. 1895.

[Pinkspoons]

Had this for a couple of years, but buried away in storage. Silver collar hallmarked for London 1895, produced by Cornelius Desormeaux Saunders & James Francis Hollings Shepherd. No idea who made the glass, though.

Just curious about how the surface decoration would have been achieved - it resembles frost that appears on windows during particularly cold days. It's not moulded, as the pattern is very irregular and the edges sharp - like the glass has been chipped away. Indeed, many of them do look like impact chips.

But I'm assuming it would be some kind of process applied whilst the glass was still hot/cooling. Hopefully it's something that can be safely replicated now, as this decanter is sadly stopperless, and the chance of finding a replacement in the same style is, well, near-zero. So I was considering having a new one made.

[Ivo]

technique is called glue chip - lots of information online, including DIY!

[Pinkspoons]

Oh, I was reading something about that just the other day! Silly me.

Thanks for that, Ivo.

[krsilber]

Cool Kuttrolf!  Have you tried pouring anything from it, and does it gurgle?

The structure of Kuttrolfs has always fascinated me.  They were made by sucking air out of the shaped, still soft bubble.  According to Cummings's History of Glassforming, "the technique and shape are as old as glassblowing" (with a photo of a decanter very similar to yours).  These are a couple Kuttrolfs in the Corning Museum, and I've always been curious how they were made.  I've seen explanations that talk about creating a vacuum to form the tubes, but still can't understand how they were separated.

[Pinkspoons]

I was given a set of photographs a while back of the Holmegaard factory tour in 1973, and they include a series of shots showing kuttrolf production. Not really quite sure what's going on in most of them, but they seem to be blown into a box with four tubes leading in to it... I assume this helps form the shape..... somehow!

The photos are quite large, necessary because they're dark, so I'll have to spread them across a few posts.

[Pinkspoons]

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