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

[flying free]

Examples of Biedermeier uranium glass in the Passau Museum - as comparison

https://journalofantiques.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Pic7.jpg

Article here

https://journalofantiques.com/features/visit-passau-glass-museum/


and more here:

https://antiquesandauctionnews.net/articles/Germany%60s-Passau-Glass-Museum:-A-European-Art-Glass-Treasure-/#


https://www.google.com/maps/uv?pb=!1s0x4774f60037be0c53%3A0x6f04cd0fe31c1dfc!3m1!7e115!4shttps%3A%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPV3lCZlXwlhfaGkJM8M-5bQvdeTOy0BMiHCtwb%3Dw325-h218-n-k-no!5spassau%20museum%20uranglas%20-%20Google%20Search!15sCgIgAQ&imagekey=!1e10!2sAF1QipPOG78Hgk6yHHuYQ0HIfQzMUCsrkGXj5YVihvZe&hl=en

[Ekimp]

In The Decanter, McConnell mentions the uranium-yellow bowls, he says ‘...Whitefriars producing a suite of uranium-yellow rinsers for Victoria’s coronation banquet at the guildhall in 1837’. He calls them rinsers but assume he’s talking about the same thing. He goes on to say that Queen Adelaide (wife of William IV) was presented with a pair of “similarly coloured girandole candlesticks whilst visiting Birmingham in the 1830’s”. Maybe you could find the source of that reference to the candlesticks for corroboration?

[flying free]

Thanks I think that might possibly  be what was referred to here earlier in the thread:

In the glasshouse recipe book covering 1831to 1838 it records some trials of various colouring oxides.
One of these trials was with oxide of uranium which produced a spectacular yellow which Powells called topaz.
Powells made some silver mounted candlesticks with prismatic drops given by lord Howe to queen Adelaide in topaz in 1836.
In the banquet given by the corporation of London for queen Victoria in 1837 there were 12 finger bowls and the bowls of twenty four hock glasses.
Dont know why Charles Hajdamach would not have attributed the images, he is a very knowledgeable expert.
Tim

Essie was paraphrasing information from the book
'Whitefriars glass,James Powell & sons of London '



Also interesting that Essie says the Whitefriars book says:

'Powells made some silver mounted candlesticks with prismatic drops given by lord Howe to queen Adelaide in topaz in 1836.'

and the Decanters book mentions:

Your quote ' He goes on to say that Queen Adelaide (wife of William IV) was presented with a pair of “similarly coloured girandole candlesticks whilst visiting Birmingham in the 1830’s”.'



mmm, perhaps Queen Adelaide was overrun with Candlesticks  
Or maybe these comments refer to two different pairs of 'topaz/uranium glass' candlesticks?  one from Whitefriars apparently and one implied to be from Birmingham somewhere
Or perhaps the fact they were given in Birmingham is a red herring? maybe Whitefriars made them and the giver just happened to give them to Queen Adelaide in Birmingham?  I wonder why the Decanters book doesn't say that if the Whitefriars book says they made them?

Or maybe the candlesticks weren't made in the UK at all?

And perhaps  the candlesticks are nothing whatsoever to do with the glass bowl ?



More questions


p.s. I think they used to be called hand-rinsers, what we call finger bowls?

[Ekimp]

Ah, sorry, missed that You would imagine the candlesticks would be in a museum and documented somewhere.

I thought rinsers were the bowls with two lips in the rim for rinsing wine glasses, the stems of the glasses resting in the lip.

[flying free]

Ooh you might be right - I've just been reading something somewhere though (don't ask me to refind it) where it was mentioned they used to be called hand rinsers. I wonder if that denotes each person hand rinsing their own glass rather than what we think of as a hand wash basin for hands?

[flying free]

hmm, another thought carrying on from what you've said about rinsers with lips.
That bowl in the V&A could not be described as a rinser for wine glasses could it - with no lip to rest the stem on?  Or perhaps in days of yore they didn't have the lip on either side?

Perhaps that bowl has been held up as THE example of the mysterious topaz finger bowls but actually is not one of them at all?

One things for sure, if there was a glass company in the UK producing uranium yellow glass in 1837 it's going to be the most amazing piece of information, especially given how the literature of the past has been written regarding the development of Bohemian uranium glass (1820s and into the 1830s) and then French uranium glass following on quickly from that.
I have two pieces from a French 1842 pressed glass catalogue that may be Baccarat uranium glass.  But they are both green and I have no idea whether they were actually produced in 1842 or later on but using the same mold as those in that catalogue.

[Ekimp]

I think the bowls without lips are finger bowls - to wash your fingers - and the bowls with lips are the rinsers or wine glass coolers. Maybe finger bowls are also called hand rinsers but it doesn’t sound quite right, plus the bowls would be too small for the hand? In the Miller’s Glass book it says the wine glass rinsers started with one lip in around 1780, before that they used a communal rinsing bowl. They later added the second lip to balance the design. It says by c.1860 diners used different glasses for each wine so it wasn’t necessary to rinse the glasses. I don’t know if Queen Vic would be expected to do her own washing up

Your quote from Hajdamach in reply #21

’Stunning proof which underlines this theory is found in a set of finger bowls in yellow glass comparable to the 'Annagrun' or yellow-green colour, achieved with uranium, which had been discovered by Josef Riedel in Bohemia in the 1830s. The finger bowls and matching plates in clear glass, partly frosted and engraved, were used at a banquet in the Guildhall for Queen Victoria in 1837 to celebrate her first official visit to the City of London.'

I thought it was a bit odd in that quote (and in the note for colour plate 4) he doesn’t say that the ‘yellow glass’ bowls are uranium glass, in fact, he seems to imply that they are not as he says that the yellow glass is comparable with glass that is made with uranium. I thought it was almost as though there was a conflict between the date of the bowls and them being uranium....but maybe that’s reading too much between the lines 

[flying free]

Thank you for the explanations for glass rinsers and fingers bowls   I got distracted and it is called a finger bowl by the V&A. So not to be confused with a rinser 

I see what you mean about the CH description, but I'm pretty sure it's uranium.  The V&A use it as the example for their 'U' in their Alphabet list of interesting items.


I'm pretty sure that if he'd found evidence it was made at Powell's or at Davenport's he'd have included that.
They way I read it though was that it was used as 'stunning proof' of the development of colour in UK glass at a time when the Bohemians were in their heyday and the French had already made some beautiful coloured opalines.

Which is a bit mystifying because if it's stunning proof then there must be an evidence source it was made in the UK if you see what I mean?

  Maybe it was made at Davenports in 1837 and not including a maker's name was because info out there at the time the book was written  said it was made at Powell's and perhaps CH hadn't been able to find proof of that , or  it was known it might not have been made there but might have been made at Davenports but at the time of writing he didn't have proof of that either.


I don't know... something doesn't sit right with that bowl.  And I also think the engraving on the clear underplate was done by a different engraver.  I suppose one could have done all the plates and one the bowls.  But I also wonder if the bowl has been id'd as Davenports because they know the clear underplates came from there?  and they supposedly match. 
I just don't think it was made here. 


I'd forgotten about this thread here all about finger bowls and uranium glass and that varying shades of colour perhaps dependent on era:

https://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,18341.msg106048.html#msg106048

[Ekimp]

Yes, I see what you mean

I assume the yellow glass was uranium too, due to the v&a etc but thought it was odd that hajdamach didn’t mention it.

[flying free]

The more I read the piece on page 54 the more I think it's a bit odd to say they are proof of being English glass but then not supply the maker.