Topic: Linen Smoother 1840 or 16th / 17th century - Gribdae Farm Kirkudbright

[flying free]

Thought I’d add some of my pictures for this interesting thread, the black one is around 6.5 inches similar to wrockwardine early Nailsea glass and very well worn. The red cotton twist around 4.5 inches also well worn, sold both of these a long time ago for a local enthusiast. Then  I recently found my little opalescent Vaseline one around 3.5 inches and had to buy it because I’ve never seen another. It has no wear and I presume from around 1890’s. Clear Vaseline inside with white opalescent around the outside. Described as a darning mushroom? Not quite sure of its purpose.
Regards Mike

Mike I've seen something like your clear one described I think(!! can't remember where I saw it now) as 19th century Czechoslovakian.  I think.

The opalescent one could be a darning mushroom.  It looks a bit fine but also could it be more recent?  Is it lightweight?  Darning mushrooms are usually wood and very easy to use

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  I suppose they could have more than one usage. Some may have started out as linen smoothers then eventually serve a purpose wholly divorced from such a task. Spillman does mention in the comment section of the Knopfs book concerning the smoother " although early colonists brought European-made linen smoothers to this country, examples were also made here in bottle and window glass houses".I assume that comment is not taken from "thin air" as we say and some documentation some where backs that up. My copy of Knopfs GLASS 2 is a first printing c.1983. A 4 1/2 x 8 1/2 in. paperback designed to fit in the pocket or purse. 346 items taking up one page each including a nice photograph. The text on each page features six informational categories for each piece, Description,Variations,Type and Dimensions, Locality and Period, Comment, and Hints for Collectors. I doubt you will find an excerpt somewhere, then again one never knows.

  The one in my collection is a fairly simple affair and I will show you mine even though you haven't shown me yours....Ha. Ha.  It has some grinding around the top edge of the short handle I assume to take away some sharpe edges.

 So some are flat and some are rounded, curious.

Cagney thank you for that further information.  Much appreciated.  I think what I'm a bit surprised about is that neither the Stewartry museum nor the author of the Scottish Antiquaries proceedings written in 1878 had ever come across either the viking article or the one from Gribdae farm and did not know what either were.

It also seems that when the handled one was donated to the Stewartry museum (presume pre 1861 as the donor was dead by then) no one knew what it was then either. 
So if these were in such normal every day use as linen smoothers I might have presumed they would have known what they were. 
The donators father (who had died in 1835) had been using it to grind sugar and salt and even if one assumes the story about the cairn find might not be true he surely wouldn't be donating a well known item for the era and pretending it was something else - surely someone would have realised?

And I do think the donor obviously thought it was something interesting and special otherwise why would he have taken it to the museum? He obviously donated it decades before the viking article was written about so it wasn't to do with jumping on a bandwagon.  The description of his farm sounds as though he was quite well off and the farm was very large.  I know that memories can be opaque and the wording of the Stewartry letter to the Society does appear to put 2 and 3 together and come up with 4 to make the situation fit a 'viking' cairn find but it could well be that William Bell did find it under a heap of stones.  Just that it wasn't a viking find.

[flying free]

and coming back to usage -  I can imagine holding this very early version with no handle in my hand with my hand over the dome shape and using the base curved edges to smooth linen (IF it was used that way then that might be why the pontil mark was depressed so as to ensure no snagging?)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Glass_linen_smoother,_top_view_%28FindID_95028%29.jpg

But the one with the handle would have been shaped the other way up with the domed shape against the fabric.

This is a version from the book by Kent Andersson, Glass:From Romans to Vikings - Uppsala, Balderson Publisher, 2010
https://celeratheroman.wordpress.com/2020/08/24/blown-viking-linen-smoother/

It shows this particular green pointed linen smoother on a board and dome upwards.

[cagney]

  All very nice photos. I think I detect a certain.,,,Primitiveness?   in m's example that may indicate an earlier date.The darning mushroom is a first for me as well. Darning eggs and Stocking darners as Spillman terms them  [round head with handle about 5 to 6 in. total length, always hollow and usually colored or art glass] not uncommon here. According to Spillman not a factory inventory item. Dated c.1880s to 1920. Steuben examples in their iridescent colors very expensive.

  Dimensions of my smoother: 9.5 cm wide x 9 cm high and about 1 1/2 lbs. Small wear spot at center of dome. Handle possibly broken off at some time.and thus shortened, hard to say.

[thewingedsphinx]

The black one possibly 18th century, the red cotton twist one possibly 1800 ish not sure why a auction house attributed it to being Czech ( I think that maybe a red herring) I don’t understand why both of those are so worn and scratched if they were used to smooth linen? Maybe the black one is a slicker stone for polishing wooden boards. I’ve not managed to find any glass darning mushrooms.
I think my opalescent one would be around 1890 ish. Although not a muller ( paint muller has a flat base) someone did mention it could be to squash oil paint pigments??

[flying free]

I've had a possible lightbulb moment.  I was driving in the rain in the car tonight.  Our windscreen is 14 years old.  It's had windscreen wipers rubbing across the glass for 14 years.  My windscreen obviously doesn't look anything like the base of my black glass linen smoother -  and probably others but I need to go and have another search as I don't recall seeing the base shot of any of the items     
I don't believe it was a linen smoother.

I mean this one here is bigger than mine but added to which it weighs 10kg which is about 23lb.  Or the weight of three babies!! That's some different kind of object/implement altogether to a small round black viking slick stone used for smoothing linen. Unless they weren't small.  Will go and check dimensions now on the viking examples.
https://www.bonhams.com/_next/image.jpg?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg1.bonhams.com%2Fimage%3Fsrc%3DImages%2Flive%2F2019-07%2F11%2F94629254-421-1.jpg%26height%3D430%26quality%3D90&w=2400&q=75

https://www.bonhams.com/auction/25846/lot/800/a-very-large-green-glass-linen-smoother-probably-dublin-ireland-circa-1760/

[flying free]

The black one possibly 18th century, the red cotton twist one possibly 1800 ish not sure why a auction house attributed it to being Czech ( I think that maybe a red herring) I don’t understand why both of those are so worn and scratched if they were used to smooth linen? Maybe the black one is a slicker stone for polishing wooden boards. I’ve not managed to find any glass darning mushrooms.
I think my opalescent one would be around 1890 ish. Although not a muller ( paint muller has a flat base) someone did mention it could be to squash oil paint pigments??

It was from Bonhams a whole collection of them sold.  And that was only in 2019, 2 October 2019 in Oxford.  So it's a very recent identification.
https://www.bonhams.com/auction/25846/lot/801/a-clear-and-red-glass-linen-smoother-czechoslovakian-circa-1830/

[flying free]

I've had a possible lightbulb moment.  I was driving in the rain in the car tonight.  Our windscreen is 14 years old.  It's had windscreen wipers rubbing across the glass for 14 years.  My windscreen obviously doesn't look anything like the base of my black glass linen smoother -  and probably others but I need to go and have another search as I don't recall seeing the base shot of any of the items     
I don't believe it was a linen smoother.

I mean this one here is bigger than mine but added to which it weighs 10kg which is about 23lb.  Or the weight of three babies!! That's some different kind of object/implement altogether to a small round black viking slick stone used for smoothing linen. Unless they weren't small.  Will go and check dimensions now on the viking examples.
https://www.bonhams.com/_next/image.jpg?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg1.bonhams.com%2Fimage%3Fsrc%3DImages%2Flive%2F2019-07%2F11%2F94629254-421-1.jpg%26height%3D430%26quality%3D90&w=2400&q=75

https://www.bonhams.com/auction/25846/lot/800/a-very-large-green-glass-linen-smoother-probably-dublin-ireland-circa-1760/

According to this information the ones without handles used from viking to medieval period were 6.5cm to 8.5cm and comfortable size to be held in the hand:
http://www.theglassmakers.co.uk/pdffiles/linensmoothers.pdf

Regarding the items with handles I can't imagine a servant thinking 'I'll just pop out and get the 23lb linen smoother so I can iron this collar' 

Perhaps there was another use for them regarding linen?  Perhaps they were weights to hold down piles of linen or something?

[flying free]

Probably nothing in this at all but I do like a tenuous connection

In the linked Glassmakers paper, there are some fragments from a handled linen smoother shown as being excavated from Bickerstaffe.

Bickerstaffe has a connection to the Earl of Derby. See paper on excavation of c.1600 Bickerstaffe Glasshouse.
https://www.merseysidearchsoc.com/uploads/2/7/2/9/2729758/jmas_9_paper_1.pdf

My linen smoother was posted to me from Solway Firth area which I think is where Kirkcudbright is. 
Kirkcudbright is where the similar, also handled linen smoother from William Bell is in the Stewartry museum.

Initially the only link I could find between Bickerstaffe/the Earl of Derby and Kirkcudbright was an invasion by the Earl of Derby on Kirkcudbright in 1507 .  This is too early for a Huguenot glass item from later 1500s glasshouse at Bickerstaffe.

However, it seems in August 1650 a Lady Derby wrote from Kirkcudbright a letter to her sister-in-law. Lady Derby was in Kirkcudbright en-route from the Isle of Man:
http://www.isle-of-man.com/manxnotebook/fulltext/lw1874/ch07a.htm

So, not putting 2 and 2 together and making five BUT ... IF they were linen smoothers, then just saying ... maybe Lady Derby was travelling with lots of linen and a servant and left her Bickerstaffe made linen smoothers in Kirkcudbright 

Although I've no idea what the black glass at Bickerstaffe looked like.  Mine could be completely the wrong colour of course.

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I've managed to take this under very strong light and it was the only show through I could get with very great difficulty.  It shows the olive green colour of the glass although to the eye and under all the other lights I held it under it, it appears completely black.

I'm not suggesting it dates from c.1600.  Just that I was curious so read up on the excavations.