Topic: Small facet cut stem ruby glass - Gorge de pigeon / Gold-ruby instead

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Which, for the moment, brings me back to my beautifully    facet cut, apparently poorly  gilded liqueur glass.

With regards the gilding, it was gilded directly onto the glass and a lot has worn off.  It's not top end decoration by any stretch, but it is gilding that is seen often on glasses of the same design (two of which I've linked to on here) and similar earlier pieces:
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,54820.msg310668.html#msg310668
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,54820.msg310669.html#msg310669

I'm not suggesting it is gold-ruby glass but it may well be copper ruby glass.

I don't know whether it is 'cased' red glass or solid.  And think further discussion is needed.

If it is solid then these red glasses of this shape (and the faceted jug in Felice Mehlman's book that is very similar) could actually imho, be  interesting, because:
a)  there appear to be very few solid red glass pieces around up to the advent of using selenium for red glass from the end of the 19th century - most of them appear to be cased (gold-ruby cased because of the expense I presume (btw Berhrens and Rheinische Glashutte produced  solid gold-ruby glass at the end of the 19th), and

copper ruby appears to have been used as cased because it is so dark as a solid (this is what I have come across, but am open to correction)

b) So if, as I think,it's copper ruby glass and if it ('they',including the others linked to) aren't cased, then some maker was able to produced very nicely coloured solid copper ruby glass, which appears to be quite unusual. 

c) If on the other hand it is cased red glass (copper ruby presumably), then it's quite a feat of manufacture to make such a small piece with such a narrow fine cut stem, in cased glass.

m

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I came across a piece of research that mentioned that Mayer Oppenheim had patented gold-ruby glass in Birmingham in the late 1700s. ( I can't find my reference at the moment but it was a piece done in the last few years, so recently).

I knew I recalled the name but I have now found a previous thread where this had already been mentioned:
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,54267.msg307650.html#msg307650

David said:
'The manufacture of ruby glass has a quite interesting history. It appears that the Romans did make ruby glass, but it was Andreas Cassius, in 1676 who rediscovered it, so Mayer Oppenheim "re-invented" it in 1755 when the patent was granted by George III. ...'

Note - obviously the quote on that link from Encyclopaedia Britannica in reference to gold-ruby glass is incorrect in it's dating of periods of production.

see also this link:
http://historywm.com/wp-content/uploads/issues/issue4/files/res/pages/page_0034.swf

re: Mayer Oppenheim, the first glassworks in Birmingham 'established in 1757 and out of use by 1780/81.'

(I seem to recall reading somewhere, possibly in that 'recent research' (please no quotes, this is just from memory and I could be wrong) that Oppenheim made glass toys and there was some link or reference to the ruby glass being used for those.  I will try and find that article/research if I haven't already linked it somewhere on this thread)



m

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This link gives the information I had read elsewhere about Mayer Oppenheim and his gold ruby glass which he patented in 1755:
(The information is the the descriptor for a clear glass bowl with a ruby trailed rim)
http://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?museum=&t=objects&type=exact&f=&s=friedrich&record=15

'Description:
Colorless lead glass, cylindrical punch bowl with an applied string of ruby-red glass around rim of bowl; sloping sides molded in a diamond pattern; thick, disk base and applied foot rim; and rough pontil mark on the underside of bowl. This punch bowl is unusual, and its exact origins and date are still unclear; in 1995, the English expert, Martin Mortimer, thought it to be English, possibly early 19th century, and Dwight Lanmon, then director of Winterthur, thought that it was possibly of 18th century Continental European manufacture. Ruby-coloured glass based on a gold-tin solution made by precipitating gold in a tin chloride solution is often called purple of Cassius, named after Andreas Cassius (1605-1673), which his son described in a 1685 pamphlet known as, "De auro." The process is closely associated with Johannes Kunckel (1630/1638?-1703), glassmaker and alchemist to Friedrich Wilhelm (1620-1688), Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia; Kunckel described experiments to calcine gold with aqua regia to make a transparent red color. In 18th century England, only one manufacturer of ruby glass made with colloidal gold is known - Mayer Oppenheim, a Jewish immigrant from Pressburg (Bratislava), Hungary, who emigrated to England where he worked in London and Birmingham. In 1755, he established himself in Birmingham where his name appears, phonetically transcribed from the Hebrew as "Opnaim," in the 1774 and 1775/6 Birmingham directories as being at 92 Snow Hill. Oppenheim obtained a patent for "Transparent Red glass" on a lead base in 1756, and renewed it in 1770; and around 1757, he built the earliest documented glassworks in Birmingham. The "Birmingham Gazette" of February 22, 1762, noted, "The red transparent glass is to be had at the above glass-house, either a light rose of deep ruby colour." However by 1777, he was bankrupt and in the King's Bench Prison between July 1778 and February 1780; he then disappeared to France. Although Oppenheim was known to exploit his patent, very few alleged, 18th century English ruby glass examples have been identified, and none of those seem to conform to satisfactorily to Oppenheim's patent specifications. R.J. Charleston suggests that most of Oppenheim's ruby glass was mainly used by Birmingham's 'glass-pinchers,' who made small pressed objects such as buttons, or possibly by the Birmington enmellers in the preparation of their pigments. However, there is also a small group of ruby lead-glass objects, mostly in the form of sanctuary-lamps, that appear to be connected to Oppenheim's 1756 patent (in the collections of the Corning Museum and Victoria and Albert Museums). Ruby is also found in the twist colors inside enamel twist-stems of wine glasses. Formerly numbered HD 01-HT.'

I have copied the decription verbatim from the linked site.  With reference this part of the description 'The "Birmingham Gazette" of February 22, 1762, noted, "The red transparent glass is to be had at the above glass-house, either a light rose of deep ruby colour.", I presume it has been copied over from the found source and the f from 'of' should be an r making it 'or deep ruby colour'.

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http://www.archive.org/stream/ernstoppenheimco01oppe/ernstoppenheimco01oppe_djvu.txt

This link provides the information I had come across.

It has all the information I've found on Mayer Oppenheim and his gold ruby glass / gold-ruby glass patent of 1755.

You need to scroll down a few pages, to the 'Reading by Anita Engle'

It's absolutely fascinating.   Do read it.  It also gives both his recipes for his gold-ruby glass that were patented.



With regard to my comment posted a little earlier:

(I seem to recall reading somewhere, possibly in that 'recent research' (please no quotes, this is just from memory and I could be wrong) that Oppenheim made glass toys and there was some link or reference to the ruby glass being used for those.  I will try and find that article/research if I haven't already linked it somewhere on this thread)

the link document has this to say as a description of what constitutes 'toys':

These included buckles,
buttons, and "toys", that is, desirable objects such as
jewel cases, snuff boxes, miniature pieces for decoration
and, above all, scent bottles of great variety and charm.
Most of these häd formerly been made of precious metals,
tortoiseshell or enamel*

The Directories show that toy makers were a common
aspect of the glass industry at Birmingham, together with
glass Cutters, f lowerersO (engravers) and glass pinchers.
The glass pinchers were the craftsmen who made the lustre
drops for the magnificent glass table chandeliers (girand-
oles) which were becoming so fashionable that for twenty
years chandeliers could not be bought in the open market,
but had to be "bespoke." (Hughes, 1956, 321-2). The glass
pinchers also worked the glass for the common link
buttons, beads and rings. It was a very considerable trade.
(Buckley, ibid) . Probably much of the crystal and red
glass which Oppenheim specialised in was used in these

ways.

So what I thought of as 'toys' i.e children's toys, is completely different to  what they meant when they used the word 'toys' in that era.

 In my head I had him adding red noses to glass snowmen (i.e. minute uses of red glass) but in reality the red glass could have been used to make 'jewel cases, snuff boxes, miniature pieces for decoration
and, above all, scent bottles'.


m

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Just to ensure no links are left undone -
Mayer Oppenheim went down to France and in 1784? took out a patent to produce glass there (see quote below).  There is a full description of this patent application  on the link I gave above.


'Letters Patent permitting Pierre Le Mercier and Mayer
Oppenheim to establish a factory for making crystal and
white glass one or two leagues from Rouea*. Letter 31, in
Archives of Parlement, Rouen, Rap, Civ. 23 Dec, 1784.
Translated from Les Verrerries de la Normandie, 0. Le
Vaillant de la Fieffe, Rouen, 1873, 321 ff. '

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Going back to my little glass
this is the same as one of the green ones I'd seen and mentioned on here.  Came across this accidentally looking for something else.

Dr Fischer Auctions has identified this taller wine glass version as from Bakhmetev - Russian c1800.

http://www.auctions-fischer.de/catalogues/online-catalogues/197-russische-kunst-ikonen.html?L=1&kategorie=26&artikel=13877&L=1&cHash=9ac38577e4

I appreciate that the gilding on mine is very very worn, but the pattern is the same.  Also appreciate  that apparently this design can be seen on many variations of glass, but my glass is the same design as this as well.  Dr Fischer appears to have identified a number of green and clear versions of this glass all as from Bakhmetev c1800.
here is another
http://www.auctions-fischer.de/catalogues/online-catalogues/207-ii-russian-art-faberge.html?L=1&kategorie=26&artikel=24854&L=1&cHash=1a5d2e28a3

http://www.auctions-fischer.de/catalogues/online-catalogues/194-russian-art-faberge-icons.html?L=1&kategorie=26&artikel=1956&L=1&cHash=bf7e15303e


I assume then that this is correct

Just thought I'd add it.

m

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Looking for something else I came across this fascinating book published in 1763 - Commercium Philosophico-Technicum, Or, The Philosophical of Arts,   William Lewis

In it there appears to be a long description of the making of gold ruby glass -see page 172

click here

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Sold by Dr Fischer Auctions in June 2020
Russian -Imperial Glassworks late 18th century

https://www.auctions-fischer.de/catalogues/online-catalogues/280-russian-art-icons.html?L=1&kategorie=26&artikel=93509&L=1&cHash=9532907ebf

'482 - TWO GLASS GOBLETS. RUSSIA, IMPERIAL GLASSWORKS ST. PETERSBURG, LATE 18TH CENTURY...
Two glass goblets. Russia, Imperial Glassworks St. Petersburg, late 18th century. Blue-green partial-faceted glass with gilded garlands. Gilding slightly rubbed. 14.5 cm high.

Russland, Kaiserliche Glasfabrik St. Petersburg, E. 18. Jh.'