Topic: E.Varnish mercury glass with embossed seal, circa 1849

[flying free]

mm,I'm not convinced Kev.

The Author gives a very good description of the yellow interior glass used as well.
These were the days of no photos, so the Author would have had to have seen the glasses to have described them so well and to describe the feeling of them being completely smooth to touch.

Unless Thomson/Varnish sent a PR release round, which has been misconstrued in it's retelling?

m

[flying free]

Art Journal 1851 -  3 pieces pictured here.
Art Journal edition appears to be a later date in the year than the one I referred to just above (which was from March 1851). Difficult to know from the pictures whether they have a smooth exterior (i.e completely uncut) or not.

However .... one vase seems to have a similar applied silver collar as that on that 'Bohemian looking' marked Varnish glass vase in the V&A - doesn't it?

Two vases and a salver on a stand silvered by Mr Thomson's process and described as being from 'the establishment of Mr Mellish', here described and pictured as engravings:

Click here to view

[flying free]

Re: Reply #159

Kev, - no, got to disagree based on this article (however,I honestly don't think what they are describing here or in the Art Journal is what I am reading it as, or if it is what I'm reading it as, then it's not possible).

Chamber's Edinburgh Journal vol 15 (January - June 1851) page 63 (bottom of middle para on right hand side) makes it very clear that:

'The thing is, it is true, an optical delusion.  To the touch the apparently raised or sunken surface, dead or frosted, cut or burnished, does not exist.  But the eye nevertheless beholds such results'.

Click here to view

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WX1TAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA63&dq=thomson+silvered+glass+art+journal&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjtvJ2ImorXAhWpAMAKHZk6AncQ6AEIOTAE#v=onepage&q=thomson%20silvered%20glass%20art%20journal&f=false


But this listing is a good example and can be enlarged and the cutting on the exterior I think (?) can be seen?
http://www.dreweatts.com/cms/pages/lot/13856/461


So, I have three Bohemian pieces with gilt interiors. I have no English versions and have never seen one in real life.
Has anyone else? 
Are they somehow cut with patterns on the interior surface and then havea plain smooth clear casing or sleeve over the outside?

By the way unlike the Art Journal, the Chamber's article praises highly the mirror globes, towards the end of that article, and says some of them were 30" in diameter!

m

[KevinH]

Kev, - no, got to disagree based on this article (however,I honestly don't think what they are describing here or in the Art Journal is what I am reading it as, or if it is what I'm reading it as, then it's not possible).

Wow m! Now I am really confused. 

Keeping it simple ...
You pointed out that the image of the pair of vases from the Dreweatts sale can be enlarged and the cutting on the exterior can be seen. That is correct ... they are intaglio cut on the outside or (to use somebody else's wording) "cut-to-silver". The thickness of the colour casing can be seen and the neatness of the sloping edges of the cuts can also be seen. They are formed in basically the same way as all cut-to-clear items of 19th century Europe including England. The only main difference in method of decoration is that of the double-wall to accommodate the sealed silvered interior.

I can confirm the method of cutting with my rather vague memory of holding one of those actual vases at Christie's salerooms in 1998. I also held a couple of the larger items - very chunky, very heavy and also with normal cutting through the external colour to the revealed silvered interior.

[What I did not take note of when I examined the Christie's' items was the depth of the inner wall (or "bowl"). If I had thought at that time I might be discussing them nearly 20 years later, I would have paid more attention. And that would have helped me understand the way they were formed. ]

The three images in the Art Journal show items that were also intaglio cut on the exterior to reveal the silvering. But they are all really well cut items - very intricate.

I have also had in my greasy paws a couple of uncased versions of silvered glass, probably Bohemian. They had some external, lightly engraved or etched floral decoration against an all silvered background. The depth of the clear glass did produce a form of optical illusion, when viewed at certain angles, rather like having double vision, with a second image reflected off the interior silvering. But I would not call it an "embossed" effect, although perhaps that what those Victorian reporters meant. Those were probably the closest I could get to describing as having a "smooth to the touch outer surface".

[flying free]

 

ok so I/we? think the author is talking about the reflected second image that happens with internally silvered glass which has been cut or engraved/decorated on the outer layer.

Maybe that too is what the Art Journal were describing hence deciding they had to have been made in two pieces in order for the 'apparent/perceived' cutting on the internal surface to have taken place.

The general public don't seem to have had much experience with mirrors at that point from reading those description and reading around generally on the developments for making plain flat reflective mirrors.  So perhaps  plain mirrored surfaces were not readily available, therefore reflections might have been quite difficult to perceive and describe?

I do actually remember coming across this conundrum on a piece of cameo glass that had been cut on an outer layer of frosted clear glass layered on top of a translucent opaline layer.  Even in 2012 I perceived it as an amazing effect, and had to do some close looking.

Thanks Kev

m


Edited 26 Oct 2017 to add text originally with the next post ...
P.s. I meant to add in my post above, that on the three pieces I have (Bohemian) the internal wall of the bowls (where the liquid in a goblet or salt in a salt would go) all go right down to the bottom of the bowl, i.e. if so wished, they would be fully functioning pieces.

They are all good quality antique original pieces, gilded (somehow) on the interior bowl, no signs of mold blowing, all double walled and silvered, and one has a makers mark impressed on the seal in the foot.

[flying free]

Topic: dissolution of Patent Silvering Glass Company   (note name - different to that previously documented in an 1853 report about a banquet held in 1850 - see reply #143, where it was documented as Patent Silvered-Glass Company. )

Click here to view


Quote: The London Gazette page 2522 (Sep 2, 1851 - Dec 30 1851)

'Notice is hereby given, that the Partnership lately subsisting between us the undersigned, Edward Varnish, Frederick Hale Thomson and James Thomas Cookney, as the Patent Silvering Glass Company, carried on at No. 48, Berners-street and No. 134, Regent-street in the county of Middlesex, under the name of firm of Edward Varnish & Co., was dissolved on 27th day of September instant, by mutual consent. All debts owing to and by the late firm will be received and paid by the said Frederick Hale Thomson, who will continue to carry on the said business.- As witness our hands this 29th day of September 1851.
                Edward Varnish
                Jas.T.Cookney.
                Fredk. Hale Thomson.'





Notes:
1) In one of the court case reports,  it reads that Mellish went in May 1851 and Varnish appeared to say in the court case that Mellish went 'two weeks before he did'. 

I  therefore assumed Varnish had gone in May 1851, so had been wondering how Varnish was exhibiting these pieces at the Great Exhibition (held from May to October 1851) if he'd gone.
As an explanation of this discrepancy I had assumed the reports of the Great Exhibition were most likely from the opening stages of the Exhibition anyway (i.e. May 1851 when it first opened) and therefore Edward Varnish & Co would have still been the name of their Stand at the opening of the Exhibition.

2) From this listing in the London Gazette, it seems Edward Varnish & Co were still operating as the firm's name  until 27 September 1851 but that the company partnership was registered as the Patent Silvering Glass Company.

3) This listing makes clear that the partnership has been dissolved however the business continues under the ownership of Frederick Hale Thomson from 27th September 1851.

4) So ? this may have been the end of:

 a) the Patent Silvering Glass Company
b) Edward Varnish and Co

because:
- Edward Varnish had no idea about glass by his own admission. 
- Thomson had the money and the premises and the staff and the contacts at Powell & son to have the glass manufactured, and the knowledge to carry out silvering double walled glass.
- Mellish (who had been shown how to silver glass by Thomson) had gone from the company in May 1851


5) I wonder if 27th September 1851 was the date the last double walled glass pieces  had the lozenge in 'Varnish & Co Patent'?
   
6) I wonder if 27th September 1851 was the date the first double walled glass pieces had the lozenge in the base 'Thomson Patent'?

7) James Thomas Cookney may have been a money man, or investor, rather than a glass knowledge type person?

Click here to view the Spectator listing where he  is listed as a trustee of the Aegis Life Assurance Company.


8 )  It seems  that some of Drewfind's 'assertions' and 'statements of fact' in his posts early on in this thread may not be correct.


m

[flying free]

I think we need to try and put together a timeline of events/people/partnerships so far.
I can't promise anything but will try to remember to write something up at least listing dates and events.

m

[KevinH]

Yes, timelines etc. are the next stage. They will help to form the basic structure of an article.

You draw up your timelines and I will draw up mine. Let's try to keep the details brief with a simple text reference to the source of the info. No links; they can be extracted from the source references as and when needed. We can then compare results and modify as necessary.

I have colour-coded my copies of the details of the trials so that I can more easily find and link together basic facts for: People, Places, Dates & Times, etc. I estimate a week to get my first draft produced, spending an hour or two per day.

[flying free]

Topic:  Who devised the silvering process that Mr Thomson was using?


According to the Art Journal part 1 1851 page 75 and 76, they note that in 1848 they discussed Mr Drayton's process for silvering glass and had thought it was the process that would be successful and stop other makers from using previously used injurious substances to silver glass.

They note in this 1851 journal that in fact, dark spots started appearing on Mr Drayton's mirrors and so his silvering process was not in the end successful (using oil of cloves and cassia with the silver nitrate - as far as I understand it).

The Art Journal then says that a Mr Stenhouse 'then of Glasgow,but who is now about to occupy the chemical chair at the College of Civil Engineers, at Putney, also published a paper in the Memoirs of the Chemical Society, in which he gave a list of a great many articles, which had the property of precipitating silver from it's solution. Gum Arabic, starch, salcine, saccharic acid and Aldehyde were there named, as were also the essential oils of pimento, turpentine, laurel - and the peculiar property of grape-sugar was particularly named.  Upon this last substance Mr Stenhouse had instituted a great number of experiments, which were clearly the first indications of it's use now included in the patent  process of Mr Thomson,of which we shall presently have to speak.'


So, it seems Mr Thomson was not using Mr Drayton's process, but using a nitrate and grape-sugar process publicised it seems by Mr Stenhouse, or at least it was Mr Stenhouse who conducted experiments with the grape-sugar and wrote an article bringing this process to the wider attention.

[flying free]

Topic:  Evidence of whether Whitefriars blew many of the double walled glass items and whether they blew the items that were double-walled and cased.


Do we have any evidence at all that Powell's were able to produce 'double-walled cased glass' in colours at this time? (Kev I know you mentioned their expertise with colours previously - was this to do with stained glass windows?)



We have two pieces of court evidence:

a) Mr Thomson asked Mr Mellish to go to Mr Powell's  to get a double-walled inkwell blown.  This seemed to take an inordinate/lengthy amount of time according to Mr Thomson.

There is no indication the inkwell was cased, and  as it seems to have been the 'aha' moment for Mr Thomson, i.e. the first one made, perhaps it took so long to make because it was the first one and therefore might not have been a cased version of double-walled glass.



b) Varnish says in the first court case that the amount of glass they bought from France was less than that purchased from Powell's. This indicates they bought from Powell's

But it also indicates they bought from France: 

- Varnish also says they when they went to France they went to 'the first establishments' indicating they purchased from more than one place.

- Iirc Varnish says he/he and Mellish also visited Belgium (and  Birmngham ?- but can't find that wording at the moment)

- France was capable of producing cased on clear and cut to clear cased glass at this time.

- Thomson also says in the first court case that they dealt with someone else, and it seems implicit by his phraseology, that was about  purchasing glass from someone else.  That person was called 'Sago' according to the transcript but who knows if that has been copied over correctly into modern font?



c) I have seen mention that the glasses made with a Varnish plug are heavy.
-  I have a St-Louis goblet from c.1850, cased in red, cut to clear - it's heavy and a 'chunky' design. 
   I have another green pressed beaker also from that period I believe, also
   heavy, and I have a number of Bohemian goblets from that period cased, also heavy.
-  The St-Louis goblet I believe was made using gold-ruby glass casing.

So, is it possible that the description of 'heavy' is used as comparative to Bohemian silvered glass, which might seem to be lighter ? I have no idea why but I can confirm the three I own are much lighter than my St Louis goblet . 
But in terms of 'weight' perhaps not that different to 'normal' cased Bohemian and French glass of the period (allowing for the fact that it will be double layered and have a silvered interior so will automatically be heavier than say, my pieces.
 


Do we know of any Powell glass items from this period?  Are they inordinately heavy?

-  Birmingham makers were also producing cased glass (see Great Exhibition descriptions).
-  There is no indication in the Great Exhibition descriptions of 'cased glass' from Powell's.
-  Iirc I did find one description of a new stained glass process from Powell's, mentioned in the Great Exhibition descriptions somewhere, involving
   colour though.


I'm asking because whilst I know that similar shapes were made 'everywhere', I searched high and low for a stem to match that on my goblet and the nearest I came was Bakewell or Bakewell Pears in America I think ? and then France. It has a peculiar 'heft' in it's design as well,it's 'clunky'.
The shape of the stem and the 'flat' foot on the blue goblet on this set of English silvered glass, just reminded me of my goblet so much:

http://www.antiquemercuryglass.com/Page24.html

of course, I could have just been unlucky in searching and probably similar design elements were in fashion all over.  But ... maybe not.


m