Topic: Info on James Powell Topaz glass - "The Queen Victoria Topaz bowl"

[flying free]

Everywhere else I look it seems to say 1834 but I couldn't find any primary source material  for that.  Perhaps they made a mistake on the video.

Looking at colour the only thing I could find was this from Whitefriars.com, which talks about colour from 1850 but no mention of the Topaz glass from 1837 unfortunately.
https://whitefriars-glass.com/history-of-whitefriars.php

[essi]

M,you are right about the 1834 date. It may be that the Powells were working from a recipe book inherited from the previous owners of Whitefriars.
In the big whitefriars book there is quite a lot written about the early history of Whitefriars before the Powells bought the business.
Tim

[flying free]

Edited to remove previous questions  re date Powell's acquired the Whitefriars Glass-works. 
I did find the date 1837 quoted in a book written in 1912 though - The History of Fleet Street in Seven Centuries by Walter George Bell.
I'm still wondering why this date was quoted in that book and in the museum video as well.
I thought I'd found a patent but got my decades mixed up so deleted my previous links and questions re the start date year.


I wasn't quite sure what you meant about the book though.  Do you think it wasn't Powell's book?

[flying free]

Edited to remove previous questions  re date Powell's acquired the Whitefriars Glass-works.
I did find the date 1837 quoted in a book written in 1912 though - The History of Fleet Street in Seven Centuries by Walter George Bell.
I'm still wondering why this date was quoted in that book and in the museum video as well.
I thought I'd found a patent but got my decades mixed up so deleted my previous links and questions re the start date year.

[essi]

M, the dates i have used come from the museum of London Whitefriars book.
In the book they publish a price list of glass made by The White Friars glass house from July 1812.
In the list it shows items made in coloured glass. I am thinking when James Powell bought the company it must have included all the old companies recipe books. Also in the book it says the Powells were conducting there own exprriments.
Tim 

[flying free]

Thank you Tim.
I've edited my two posts above yours so apologies if they now look different to when you answered.
m

[flying free]

Blimey, I hope I haven't broken something but the Museum of London Prints link has disappeared on both those links and now shows as error 404. 


m

[flying free]

ok, it's re-appeared here on a V&A site

https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/a-z-of-glass

and the caption reads
'Finger bowl, Davenport & Co., 1837, England. Museum no. C.110-1992. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London'

It's the display picture for the U in their alphabetical list of glass and the descriptor reads as follows:
'U is for uranium glass

The fluorescent yellow-green colour of uranium glass is achieved by adding uranium oxide to the glass mixture or ‘batch’. It was developed by the Bohemian glassmaker Josef Riedel during the 1830s, who named it after his wife, Annagrün [Anna Green]. As this glass contains small amounts of uranium, it's slightly radioactive.'

No mention of James Powell.

But has a makers name attached as Davenport & Co.
Under Descriptive Line, the V&A says:

'Descriptive line
Finger-bowl, England, Staffordshire (Longport), made by Davenport, 1837

Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
Lockett & Godden, Davenport, p. 287-8'



In Apsley Pellatt's book the Curiosities of Glass Making 1849 there is really very scant information on Uranium glass.   He mentions it on page 73 and talks about the new fashion for scent bottles and the beautiful semi-opalescent, yellowish green colour for these; produced chiefly by the expensive oxide of uranium, mixed with a slight portion of copper and appearing yellow or light green.

Then he goes on to say the chameleon-like effect of it is 'also produced by uranium alone, used as the colouring oxide for gold topaz:  it has been much in demand for hock glasses and decanters, and many ornamental articles of glass;...'  (hock- my bold, German white wine)

So, if the Topaz bowl was produced in 1837 for Queen Victoria's attendance at the City of London banquet that must have been quite an achievement. Especially given the glass tax laws, although I suppose they wouldn't have mattered if it was for the queen. But it would have meant making up a uranium glass pot specially to produce this glass wouldn't it?
  And 12 years later in 1849 Pellatt mentions it was much in demand for hock glasses and decanters.


I wonder where that bowl was produced? And what date for that matter.  She married Prince Albert in February 1840.  He was German.  I presume presents and articles would have come from far and world-wide to celebrate that marriage.  That date might fit better  with the colour being much in demand for hock glasses etc. However whether it was produced in England at that date is another question as the journalists of the time made much of the fact that even by 1851 at the Great Exhibition, the English glass colours still couldn't compete with Bohemian glass.  And the colour of that bowl is pretty amazing.

[flying free]

Page 121 here shows an example of Harrach produced uranium glass from c.1840 and 1841
https://pressglas-korrespondenz.de/aktuelles/pdf/pk-2000-2w-sg-annagelb-eleonorengruen-uran.pdf

However they showed uranium glass items Chrysoprase in 1831.

[flying free]

For ease of reference, adding a link to the piece in the V&A collection, along with a link to the clear glass ice plate that appears with it, and a link to a jug which apparently was produced by Davenport at a much earlier period and also another clear glass plate:

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O2170/finger-bowl-davenport-co/

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O2181/ice-plate-davenport-co/

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O2895/ice-plate-davenport-co/
When you look into the more information tab,this one says
Probably manufactured by the firm of Davenport, Longport, Staffordshire
Cyrus Hill, the grandfather of Mrs Wright the donor, worked at the Davenport glass works

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1227065/jug-j-and-j/