I thought this was interesting, it is an acid etched Vermicular or Vermicelli decorated wine glass, surprisingly, the etching is on the inside surface. The glass is good quality and quite fine with a good ring to it. The absence of a collar at the top of the stem where it attaches to the bowl might indicate the glass post dates approximately 1880, I’m not sure how reliable a guide that is for dating, I’m sure there are many exceptions.
I think it is either by Richardson or decorated by Northwood. Hajdamach shows a Vermicular decorated jug by Richardson on page 113, the vermicular pattern registered by Richardson on 24 August 1854, Rd No. 96703. The exact same jug (I have compared squiggles) is shown in Manley on page 57. Manley says that ‘many years later, John Northwood used it [the pattern] and it continued to be used at his works until 1918’.
The jug in the books looks to have clear vermicular lines with the area between lines being frosted, rather than on my glass where just the lines have been etched. The pictures of the jug aren’t too clear so can’t see any detail on how the etching was achieved. It would be interesting to see a close detail of the jug with the frosting as Hajdamach strongly implies that frosting by acid wasn’t developed in Britain until 1867 by Northwood (page 184). Prior to this, frosting was achieved by mechanical abrasion with grinding wheels.
The Decanter by McConnell shows another example of a Richardson frosted and vermicular decorated jug, page 283, that is silver mounted and dated to 1864 (presumably from a silver hallmark).
There is some discussion on the Richardson registration here:
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,63356.10.html from Reply #15, including a photograph of the registration document provided by Paul S. Photograph here:
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=63356.0;attach=195227On the Registration it says ‘this Pattern upon all kinds of table glass’ and given what Manley says about Northwood production, it’s surprising you don’t see more of it.