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

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Molineaux Webb showed red glass at the Great Exhibition:

https://sites.google.com/site/molwebbhistory/Home/ancoats-glass-exhibition-2016

https://issuu.com/brunomanuelalbano/docs/the_20art_20journal_20illustrated_2/324

https://sites.google.com/site/molwebbhistory/Home/history/5---the-great-exhibition-of-1851

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Art Union Journal September 1847 page 321 in this link below:

Shows engravings of a great variety of glass (so worth clicking on the link to see what styles they engraved) under a chapter titled The Falcon Glassworks, Messrs Apsley Pellatt & Co.

Long article, then at the end of the article on page 324 it says:

'Messrs. Apsley Pellatt & Co. have a large assortment of tastefully selected foreign glass vases, both at the Falcon Glass Works, and at the branch establishment at the Bazaar, Baker-stree, Portman Square; and so soon as their sales of foreign coloured and gilt vases will justify the manufacture of a large amount of similar articles of equal variety and taste, they will the less need foreign importations.'

This reads to me like Falcon Glass Works were not at that time producing quantities of coloured glass but were selling 'foreign' coloured glass items.
Admittedly September 1847 so three years before the Great Exhibition.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=UONIAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA324&dq=apsley+pellatt+cased+glass&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj9wLrs1cjjAhUVUhUIHUFpAeoQ6AEINjAD#v=onepage&q=apsley%20pellatt%20cased%20glass&f=false

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Two things -

1) an advertisement showing that Drayton was silvering Bohemian, Bavarian and Parisianglassin 1848 (I do not know what design of glass though - i.e vases or mirrors (looking glasses) )

2) a report in the Chamber's Journal of 1845 that Drayton had silvered a double glass and had help from a Frenchman M. Tourasse having lodged his Patent in France.  It mentions using this for silvering tubes and globular forms but says Drayton succeeded in silvering a 'double glass'.  I think it is referring to two looking glasses possibly? However 'cased' glass was I think iirc also referred to as 'double'

1) The Court Journal - August 19th 1848

Advertisement page 528

'ORNAMENTAL GLASS - ENGLISH AND FOREIGN, the latter comprising the newest, richest, and rarest specimens of Bohemian, Bavarian and Parisian workmanship, and many of them beautifully ILLUMINATED by DRAYTON'S NEW PATENT PROCESS for SILVERING GLASS, - constantly on sale at 310 Regent-street, immediately opposite the Polytechnic Institution, where may be also seen other Superb Specimens of Decorative Art, connected with Mr Drayton's Patent.'



https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4pIechTAkPIC&pg=PA528&dq=thomas+drayton+silvered+bohemian+glass&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjr79Dvw8njAhVIVBUIHVqwAUEQ6AEIRTAG#v=onepage&q=thomas%20drayton%20silvered%20bohemian%20glass&f=false

2)  Chamber's Journal -July to December 1845
Page 281
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vATOAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA281&dq=thomas+drayton+silvering+glass+court+journal&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj2kojAxsnjAhVTPcAKHQkqBhMQ6AEIMjAC#v=onepage&q=thomas%20drayton%20silvering%20glass%20court%20journal&f=false

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Possible Bingo ?  A French person involved in this process called a M. Power

Repertoire de Pharmacie - July 1850

This appears to me to be a French report of how Mr Drayton worked with M. Tourasse to make the silvering work in practise on articles of glass (maybe how to silver the backs of looking glasses). 
On page 28 it talks about this and
it goes on to say (I think(?) - my French is non-existent), that M. Tourasse had a successor working on this and the successor was a  M. Power (that is VERY close to hearing Mr Powell isn't it?)

On page 29   I think it says that M. Power had more success with this than M. Tourasse and was able to silver 'Phares, globes, miroires concaves et convexes, vases de fantaisie, verre graves, plaques de porte etc'

Can anyone read French well enough to know if I have understood this ok?

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=NPIKAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA28&dq=M+tourasse+miroir&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjR6ZHAycnjAhVGa8AKHdNnDWkQ6AEIPzAD#v=onepage&q=M%20tourasse%20miroir&f=false

Obviously this may be pure coincidence.  And also M. Power may have just been a chemist so his ability to silver glass may have been his own 'business' and nothing to do with making and providing glass to Mr Drayton or Hale Thomson.  But the connection might be interesting/pertinent in future in terms of who made the glass.




And in this report I think it says that in July 1850 two silvered glass globes were places in the Tuileries gardens (made in France?):
page 154
 https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0HtCAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA154&dq=M.Power++argent+Drayton&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj1gfeQ0cnjAhWSShUIHeejCyAQ6AEIRDAE#v=onepage&q=M.Power%20%20argent%20Drayton&f=false

Aah - not Bingo perhaps
This is an English report - however it says that Mr Drayton transferred the French patent to M. Tourasse.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=K0sEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA207&dq=M.Power++M.+Tourasse&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj6y_WR1MnjAhXjQkEAHf6LCRcQ6AEIOjAD#v=onepage&q=M.Power%20%20M.%20Tourasse&f=false

What is does show is a level of co-working between France and England on this silvering process.
And therefore perhaps the ability to procure French glass?

[KevinH]

Just dropping in here to say (mainly to M) that I will look at some of the additional info that has now been added and particulalrly that for which M has asked me to consider. But it may take a while. 

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  thank you.

However, I suspect I've not really added anything that gets this much further. 

I've a controversial suggestion re the red glass used by British makers.  Were the pieces they showed at the Great Exhibition actually blown by them?  Or were they finished/refined by them having been blown elsewhere?  And were the pieces with small amounts of red on them actually from their own red pots, or were they somehow produced as pieces of red elsewhere for use in smelting and then using? Is that a thing? Is it possible to do that? I think from what I've read that it might be but open to correction here.

If they were blown by them then that would have required the British glassmakers to have been running pots for red. 
If gold ruby then a) it was very expensive to produce  b) it required very careful production and the knowledge of reheating to bring out the red iirc and c) I would have thought they might have been publicising their very special gold ruby glass somewhere?

If it was copper ruby red then again not an easy process I don't think. ( I know Egermann introduced this in the 1840s and his experiments and recipes were stolen from what I recall reading). 
So that would mean that just a few years later than Egermann introduced copper ruby glass casing, after the repeal of the British excise laws, in a country where much of the glass had been and still was clear glass production , where Apsley Pellatt appears to have made no reference to them (again open to correction if I have missed something) producing their own red glass in his book dated 1849 (and I have another question over the red droplets used in the Pellatt Alhambra Chandelier for the Great Exhibition), and also where Hardman was having difficulty obtaining a decent red from Birmingham makers (but that might be because he wanted something specific for stained windows admittedly),  there were British makers producing red glass decanters and goblets etc from their own red glass pots. 

That's major progress in a very short period of time.  Or it seems so to me but I have no knowledge of the chemistry of glass colour development 

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In reply #199 I asked about a glass makers called Wood Brothers Glass in Yorkshire.
Graces Guide gave some information which included
'1834 The partnership changed when brothers John and James Wood arrived from Staffordshire to join Perkes. Richard Perkes was the glassmaker, James Wood the glasscutter and John Wood the manager, and all had worked in the Stourbridge glass industry. Their speciality was fine table glass, jugs, cruets, bottles and even lampshades - particularly flint glass cased with gold ruby glass with incised designs.'

There is a little more information here in the national archives. This seems to be a source of the gold ruby claim under 1834 in the Graces Guide (or vice versa) :

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/1ecdac48-6639-4828-967f-91c0f3072fb0

It says '(These notes are based on information supplied by Mr Denis Ashurst)'

This newspaper article talks about Wood Brothers glass and shows a curator with a ruby cased over clear glass epergne:
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/latest-news/in-barnsley-where-there-s-muck-there-s-glass-1-7066264
It doesn't clarify it is from Wood Brothers or a date of manufacture though.

However this post from the Barnsley Museums says it was made for the Great Exhibition:

http://www.barnsley-museums.com/collections?page=1
(second row right hand side)

Edited to add - it (if it is the same piece) does appear in the Great Exhibition catalogue here on page 125 under Wood & Perkes - Under Class 24 Glass, no 7.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8tc1AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA123&dq=epergne+1851+great+exhibition&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi7h4fMiczjAhUSa8AKHVY2CKIQ6AEIQzAF#v=onepage&q=wood%20perkes&f=false

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Josephinenhutte exhibited 'Colossal ruby vases'

see no. 208 page 1059 on this link:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=BMs-AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA1035-IA1&dq=gold+ruby+glass+great+exhibition&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiL4p7Ci8zjAhWNiVwKHWA5Ac0Q6AEIPjAE#v=onepage&q=gold%20ruby%20glass%20great%20exhibition&f=false

Buquoy exhibited ruby glass jugs
no. 584  page 1035

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From a site called Revolutionary Players some pieces named as Richardson glass which appear to be uploaded from the Broadfield House Museum collection, including some 'ruby stained goblets':

https://www.revolutionaryplayers.org.uk/richardson-ruby-stained-goblets/

scroll down the page to see quite a few other items.

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I have mentioned and linked to before,this report from the Great Exhibition but I am sure it is saying that there were no gold ruby glass exhibits from British makers. 
Further down in that report (see link) it mentions Kidd's silvered glass.  Kidd's silvered glass was about cutting a pattern through the reverse side of only a flat glass (so for decorating mirror surrounds,edges of furniture, door plates I imagine and then silvering it from behind so parts of the silver showed through the pattern.  I have seen a pictorial engraving example of this and it is an ornately cut through mirror.)  In the report on Kidd's silvered glass it does mention that some of it is cut through a cased glass and that the example with gold ruby overlay cased over opal/white and cut through is particularly beautiful.  It does not mention that it was made by a British maker.

I am sure, given the tone of how the reports of the Great Exhibition were written from a British viewpoint, that the authors would have been crowing about our great gold ruby glass ... if it had existed.

Therefore, I remain convinced that the silvered red glass from Varnish and Co is either not gold ruby glass or if it is, it was not produced by a British maker.  I also still feel convinced that even if it is copper ruby it is not produced by a British maker.

The Crystal Palace and it's Contents - page 94


https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=D7uDJiidJIkC&pg=PP8&dq=great+exhibition+german+glass&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjr3q-yl87jAhUOiFwKHT4QA2gQ6AEIMzAC#v=onepage&q=gold%20ruby%20glass&f=false