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

[flying free]

Yes, I do agree about the way the lists are written to be honest   However, if they were finger bowls, that doesn't explain why there were only one dozen of them??

Just a note though, from my reading,  finger bowls came back into fashion in America in a big way late 18th early 19th I think through gestures of grandeur.  So any writings about that period may not necessarily pertain to the earliest development and use of finger bowls. 

[flying free]

aha see page 38 here for an example described as  'cut finger or fringe fluting' on a tumbler:

Source: GLASS OF THE BRITISH MILITARY
ca. 1755-1820
OLIVE R. JONES & E. ANN SMITH
https://sha.org/assets/documents/Glass%20of%20the%20British%20Military%20-%20English.pdf

[flying free]

1) oops no, I don't agree about the way the lists are written 

In the Examiner list,the 'two dozen topaz-coloured hock-glasses' appears AFTER the decanters and wine coolers and before the six water jugs. It's not as clear as it being listed as drinking glasses followed by other glass accoutrements.


'The Examiner list:

 'The decanters, claret jugs, champazne, hock and other glasses, were all richly cut, and ornamented with a vine border, varied with the rose, thistle, and shamrock, and the Royal arms. The supply for Her Majesty's table consisted of three dozen wine glasses, three dozen small claret glasses, three dozen large ditto, three dozen champagne ditto, two dozen liqueuer ditto, two dozen goblets, two dozen carafes and tumblers, two dozen hexagon massive decanters, one dozen claret ditto, 18 wine-glass coolers, two dozen topaz-coloured hock glasses, six water jugs, one dozen topaz-coloured finger glasses, two dozen ice-plates and four antique earthenware jugs with the Royal and city arms in relief.'
(the rest of the Examiner list for the general entertainment glass is the same as the Birmingham Journal and also only mentions 350 wine glass coolers.)'

However that's not to say that they were not finger bowls ( get out clause here   )


2) The top table apparently had ten people on it in total having just re-checked the report in the Examiner.

[Ekimp]

Ok, almost

I still think they were bowls though. The Glass of the British Military looks interesting. The ‘cut finger or fringe fluting' on the tumbler shown in there is what John Brooks calls in his book on tumblers ‘cut flutes’ or ‘concave cut flutes’ and they are similar narrow cuts. Brooks shows examples from 1798 to 1825, so they were nothing new or exciting so why mention them in the account (if that’s what they were talking about)?

I see later on in the Glass of the British Military, figure 66 shows two of the rinser type bowls with two lips in the rim. They identify them as ‘lipped coolers or finger glasses’.

[flying free]

I don't know.
But something doesn't look right about those bowls being made by an English maker for that banquet in 1837. 
And something doesn't look right about the engraving on them. 
I'm wondering if they were made and engraved abroad with no knowledge of what the QV Arms would look like?  No time to supply a template?  So just do a V and an R and hope for the best - and they would already know what the crown would look like from history I guess?

I think the engraving of the flora on them and the plates is actually really lovely to be honest apart from that rose on the plate.
The crown on both looks 'ok' but clearly isn't the Arms and cypher looks hurried and wrong.
Perhaps that's why there were only one dozen of them - that's all the maker had ready made and they needed to be shipped?

[Ekimp]

Yes, I think when they mention finger glasses they are talking about bowls, but not necessarily the uranium bowls in this topic. The other thing with the VR on the plate is they haven’t even got the letters the same height.

[flying free]

On the topaz-coloured glass:  What is meant by 'topaz-coloured' ? (see Examiner list of items for the 1837 banquet noted at bottom of post)

On the description given below I'd assert that the uranium glass bowls shown in the V&A and Corning do not meet the definition of 'topaz-coloured glass':

Topaz glass - taken from The Practical Mechanic and Engineer's Magazine Vol IV 1847 from an article taken from the Annals des Mines 1843:
Page 266 - Under the Chapter Heading 'Chapter VIII - Of Coloured Glass'
Quote:
'Yellow There are five distinct yellows:-
1. Topaz-yellow - prepared with charcoal dust
2. Antimony yellow...
3. Orange-yellow...
4. A peculiar-yellow...
5. Greenish-yellow - this colour provides a fine effect in daylight;  by candle or gas-light it appears of a dirty yellowish-white.  It is prepared with the yellow oxide of uranium of commerce; but as this material always exhibits traces of the presence of iron, the yellow glass made by it always presents on the edge a light greenish tint'

https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Practical_Mechanic_and_Engineer_s_Ma/lbc5AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=topaz+neuwelt&pg=PA219&printsec=frontcover




'The Examiner list:

 'The decanters, claret jugs, champazne, hock and other glasses, were all richly cut, and ornamented with a vine border, varied with the rose, thistle, and shamrock, and the Royal arms. The supply for Her Majesty's table consisted of three dozen wine glasses, three dozen small claret glasses, three dozen large ditto, three dozen champagne ditto, two dozen liqueuer ditto, two dozen goblets, two dozen carafes and tumblers, two dozen hexagon massive decanters, one dozen claret ditto, 18 wine-glass coolers, two dozen topaz-coloured hock glasses, six water jugs, one dozen topaz-coloured finger glasses, two dozen ice-plates and four antique earthenware jugs with the Royal and city arms in relief.'
(the rest of the Examiner list for the general entertainment glass is the same as the Birmingham Journal and also only mentions 350 wine glass coolers.)'

[flying free]

I presume that these uranium bowls in the V&A and Corning are lead glass?

see also page 219 of the report taken from an 1843 report in Annals des Mines (right hand column under heading 'Properties of Glass' where it states that in Bohemia only one glassworks used lead glass.  I think this may have meant Harrach but that would need to be checked.

https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Practical_Mechanic_and_Engineer_s_Ma/lbc5AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=topaz+neuwelt&pg=PA219&printsec=frontcover

The design of the foot of the bowls corresponds with the jug I linked earlier in this thread - Dudley Museums had that jug as 'possibly' W.H., B., and J., Richardson. 

[flying free]

I don't know.
But something doesn't look right about those bowls being made by an English maker for that banquet in 1837. 
And something doesn't look right about the engraving on them. 
I'm wondering if they were made and engraved abroad with no knowledge of what the QV Arms would look like?  No time to supply a template?  So just do a V and an R and hope for the best - and they would already know what the crown would look like from history I guess?

I think the engraving of the flora on them and the plates is actually really lovely to be honest apart from that rose on the plate.
The crown on both looks 'ok' but clearly isn't the Arms and cypher looks hurried and wrong.
Perhaps that's why there were only one dozen of them - that's all the maker had ready made and they needed to be shipped?

Actually I'm going to retract that question in bold above and my speculation about where they might have been engraved .
I'm just simply wondering if the crown the V/U R and the Guildhall emblem were added after the bowls were originally engraved. 
i.e. the bowls were made and engraved with the flora at one point, but then the Crown, V/U R and the Guildhall emblem was added afterwards at another time.

They don't look like any finger bowl I can see in terms of shape.   I wonder if they were fruit bowls/pudding bowls really?

However, I take Ekimp's point that the list is 'probably' referring to finger bowls rather than finger cutting.

[flying free]

Some history from the Archives on Davenport China and Glass

It appears, at least in the 1820s, that the firm seems to have had an Agent in Rostock Germany and also that a nephew who had worked for the firm set up an 'outpost' of Davenport glass in Hamburg in Germany.

Quote:
'James Davenport junior, son of John Davenport's partner James, worked for the concern in England for a time, but in 1823 he was exploring the possibilities of setting up on the Continent. He visited both Brussels and Rotterdam with this end in view, but eventually set up in what seems to have been a branch house of the English concern in Hamburg with his brother Uriah and Joseph.

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/db071d3e-e56e-48f6-914e-fd7e66d751ed

I can't think what connection those two geographic regions have with china and glass except that they were possibly major shipping ports at that time? 

So perhaps they were ports used for distributing trade - which could include Glass items ready made or include transportation of uranium oxide?

Just trying to think laterally about how Davenports Longport Glass might have supplied or made a uranium glass bowl in 1837 ...

m