Topic: Hand cooler by St. Louis?

[tropdevin]

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Hi Nick.

Thanks for the offer, but I have a copy amongst my 60 plus books and publications on paperweights!

Alan

[KevinH]

Nick said:

Glass Paperweights by James Mackay printed 1973, ... clearly Paul Ysart weights listed as "so called Stourbridge weights" ...

Nick, do you mean the one weight at the top of the colour plate on page 76? With an 1847 date cane surely it has to be Baccarat, not Paul Ysart.

Alan said:

Another issue that interests me is when Bacchus paperweights are first referred to as having 'pale and pastel colours'.

Alan, I was, today, browsing some older PCA Bulletins. In the 1959 edition, there is an article by J.P. Boore, on one of your favourite subjects: Some Little Known English Makers. He refers to The Art-Union Monthly Journal, Volume  X, 1848 where, for Bacchus weights it was stated, "... some ... deserve special notice for their novelty and elegance". He then refers to "a more moderate appraisal of the late E B Haynes, in The Antique Collector, December 1953", in which it was said:

Bacchus of Birmingham ... made a number of patterned millefiori weights, the best of which have definite merit. The colors are pallid and disappointing after cross channel brilliancy. But regard their pastel colors as a novelty and their restraint as merit, and you may perceive their charm and acquire a taste for them.

Whether that was the actual beginning of the "pastel colours" idea, I don't know. But it might save you a search through more recent history.

[tropdevin]

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Hi Kev.

Thanks.   Paul Hollister reviews these various early references, and the 1849 and 1851 comments about Bacchus, though somewhat general, do not suggest the colours are pale or pastel - they talk of Bacchus paperweights being 'equal in colour...to the foreign works...'

I have E. Barrington Haynes 1949 book, and it is that to which I was referring as the mid 20th century book that called Bacchus 'pastel shades'.  Although the author only devoted 3 pages to paperweights, he had done his homework. He also mentions Islington, and a paperweight with the marking 'IGW and a large horse silhouette'.  That is probably the one now in Corning.

I think E. Barrington Haynes was a careful and thorough author with a commendable sense of reality.  In the preface he says:

'...once a theory receives general acceptance it is almost impossible to eradicate it even when it has been utterly discredited'.  Too true!

He goes on to say:

'It will be fair, then, to ask every student to read what others may have written, to hold their views in mind, but to accept nothing as completely true - not even what he is about to read here - if it should conflict with his own experience and deductions'. 

I doubt that EBH invented the idea that Bacchus are predominantly pastel coloured. But I don't know where he got it from.

Alan

[Nick77]

Nick said:Nick, do you mean the one weight at the top of the colour plate on page 76? With an 1847 date cane surely it has to be Baccarat, not Paul Ysart.

Hi Kevin,
No the two black and white images on page 69 listed as Stourbridge look like Paul Ysart to me?

Nick

[KevinH]

Thanks Nick, the upper weight on page 69 with the "chequer pattern" is by Arculus. The lower weight is one I am less sure about but I guess is also Arculus but with an unusual pattern. On that basis, "Stourbridge-type" was a reasonable description at the time of the book.

[tropdevin]

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I agree with Kev - both look to me like Arculus weights.  They did use complex millefiori in the chequer designs - I have attached an image of one of mine.

Alan

[Nick77]

Thanks both, I guess being black & white photos didn't help.

Nick