Topic: date request for uranium cut sweetmeat

[Paul S.]

Unfortunately I've lost my copy of Therle Hughes 'Sweetmeat and Jelly Glasses', which may have helped.      Style wise this is harking back to the early C19, but wouldn't be in uranium if that were the case, so am guessing it is a later copy - but how much later I'm not sure.       Quite a wide terraced foot at 3.1/8", with ground/polished pontil mark on a completely flat polished foot (which is not showing anywhere near the amount of wear that you might expect).     Height is something like 4.3/4", and cutting is quite good, although the scalloped rim is a little irregular on the individual curves.   Always nice to find a piece of cut uranium, particularly as I collect sweetmeats, since most of this green material turns up in the form of pressed examples.    Grateful for anyone's ideas on date (and country of original perhaps), and thanks for looking

[Ming]

Paul
I think the sweetmeat glass mor like to be late Vic/Edwardian.  I have a similar set of uranium cut drinking glass around the same period.

[Paul S.]

Hello Ming and thanks for your thoughts.   Very nice set of glasses you have by the way, congratulations.
In fact I hadn't lost my copy of Therle Hughes - I'd tucked it into an evelope (the book is so small) and discovered it some months later - after I'd gone out and bought another copy.!!
Looking at the arched cut of the sweetmeat rim, I'm still inclined to think this piece is copying an earliler style of something like 1770 - 1830, but stand to be corrected.    There is the possibility also, that this weetmeat may be Continental - only a guess, but the Brits. were, I thought, more keen on non-coloured pieces for their table glass, and I've yet to see another cut example in u.
It may be that there are members here who can indicate better the age of u. pieces based on the colour i.e.  some, like this with an almost oily slightly yellowish green, and then others with much weaker tones of green.
Don't think I'm that good at dating uranium glasses to feel too sure of period, although guess most of it was produced from somewhere between about 1870 and 1930 - so rather a wide span (I can cope a lot easier when I see a Rd. No., or diamond     When I first started collecting drinking glasses, I bought quite a few different cut u. examples, and then stopped as there seemed an almost endless variety, and I hadn't the space for all, let alone sets.!
We need a quality book on post Georgian drinking glasses          
Is there a particular aspect of your glasses that convinces you they are the age you suggest?    I hate to be Mr. Picky, but I don't feel there is a great deal of similarity between your glasses and my sweetmeat, aside from the fact that both show some cutting.    The colour is quite different, the stems are very different, and if pushed I might suggest my sweetmeat is older.     What do you think    do you collect many drinking glasses (we're a bit low here on that side of collecting).

[Ming]

Paul
I have been collecting old drinking glass for a few years now. Of course like most people l stop collect common type just because they are Victorian.  There are lot of late Regency/ Early Vic drinking glass for sell in all big antique fair for as low as £6 but these are the common type which you soon recognize. I only bought my set of uranium glass last Sunday at a carboot. When l saw it l asked myself how often do l see Uranium cut drinking glass. Pressed glass-load, drinking glass -No. I may not get it if it just plain without cut on bowl and stem.  At a antique fair l would have to pay at least twice amount.
I have not got a sweetmeat glass in my collection but l have a Art Nouveau Bon Bon glass intaglio engraved with water lily.  

[Lustrousstone]

Uranium cut glass glasses are not uncommon but usually sell for a premium, especially in sets. I have picked up quite a few singles or pairs cheap though. They are mostly in shades of green though, which is a colour I tend to associate with very late 19th/early 20th (not a rule of course). I think green is felt to be a good colour to drink your hock from on the Continent ( I think that's what Ivo said).

[Ivo]

Any full glass service would have a set of  green ones for imbibing 'Rhenish' wines.  At a full formal dinner you could expect a champagne, a water glass, a red wine glass , a uranium white wine glass and a port glass - all in the same livery. Of course, this was considered snobbish by the U and non-U alike... but the practice went on to at least the 1950s.

[Paul S.]

is someone trying to  :hj: my sweetmeat thread by discussing white wine 

I have managed to find another cut panel-sided sweetmeat (albeit in clear glass), and together with my uranium example remain the only non-round bowl sweetmeats I've managed to see.    Pix attached of this clear example.
This clear example differs substantially in height, stem and foot  - and it's really only the bowl that bears any similarity to the uranium example, but it is precisely this multi-sided bowl shape that I'm unable to find anywhere in my books on C19 English table glass, all of which appear with round rims/bowls - thus pointing to the probability of a non-English origin for these panelled bowls.
This idea is supported by a picture* I've just found showing a similar looking clear sweetmeat (with panelled bowl) in one of the books  -  and the description reads:   "Bohemian flushed (sic) glass tazza, used by the Victorians for sweetmeats".             
So, quite likely to be Continetal (European).
*Ref. 'Everyday Collectables - Glass & Metalware' (intro. by Tony Curtis)  -  Marshall Cavendish  -  1991 - page 23

Imagine if you installed a very long 'black light' in the ceiling  -  threw a party with u. glasses filled with hock - might blow your socks of