Topic: Topaz or Canary or Victoria

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  Considering Stiegel and the glassworkers brought over were all German it is not too much of a stretch to assign an American attribution. There was a large contingent of German/Dutch settlers in the Pennsylvania colony as well. Still, the similarities are Striking.

REPLY - The similarities are so extreme that perhaps the providence warrants further investigation?

 As for Mandarin Yellow, Paul V. Gardner in his book THE GLASS OF FREDERICK CARTER ,1971 uses the term, the "fugitive" quality of the glass as if some ingredient is breaking out  [hostile] of  the mix. This may have been Pellat's problem as well.

REPLY - I assumed Pellatt was referring to transparent uranium glass not an opaque or opaline yellow uranium glass, but that was an assumption as he doesn't elaborate (he might mention uranium and topaz as a description but would need to look that up again).
Interesting that you mentioned previously about the Steuben Mandarin Yellow being rare because
Spiegl mentioned on page 18 referring to the opaque and opaline yellow versions (my underlining):
'"Isabell" was the name of a matt yellow opaque glass from the Harrach glassworks that was first produced in 1838 and is probably a uranium color, as was the "lemon yellow bone glass" from this glassworks from 1841. Both colors are very rare. The two terms do not appear in Vinzenz Pohl’s recipe booklet.'

I wonder if they're all 'rare' examples because unstable long term?

I have mentioned this before and I think it deserves repeating, Leighton's recipe for Canary or Victoria first calls for the making of cullet to add to the batch from his no.1 flint glass. A form of quality control I think. CMOG has a handful of Mandarin Yellow examples.

REPLY - this is such a good point.  So Ford at Holyrood telling Leighton, oh just chuck some uranium in the batch in this quantity, is not helpful if the batch or cullet is not ultimately workable when mixed with uranium oxide.  Perhaps also the problem Pellatt had?
Whispers in ignorance of glassmaking technicalities - I'm beginning to wonder if lead in the glass batch was the problem?

  Do have or have access to the book BOHEMIAN GLASS 1400-1989 ? By Syvia Petrova and Jean Luc Olivie, 1990.

REPLY - I don't unfortunately.  I will have a look online to see what I can find as you've made me curious now. Correction - I've just checked my cupboard and I do have it. Is there something I could be looking up?
 

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I have just realised (or perhaps I've put this on the Queen Victoria thread and completely forgotten about it)

Spiegl W. in  Farbige Gläser has a description of what Topas-glas was:

Source - http://www.glas-forschung.info/pageone/pdf/farbglas.pdf
page 30.  Chapter heading 'Rosa Rubin und Topas-glas'

He begins the chapter with a long description of gold ruby glass.

BTW - note to Cagney, Spiegl notes specifically that the Harrach pink glass was lead free (so I'm not sure whether other of their glass was lead glass or if I'm completely mistaken on that point):
'...The Harrach "pink glass", a pound of which cost 2 guilders 40 kreuzers to produce and was thus only slightly more expensive than the "special blue for overlay", as well as the "pink ruby ​​according to M. E. Schmid"[6], were lead-free chalk glasses with gold dissolution. For a while...'



Then in the next paragraph goes on to say (google translated)

'Related to the gold ruby ​​is the "topaz glass," which could be produced in Neuwelt as early as 1829 and by Lötz and Schmidt in the Goldbrunn glassworks from around 1830. In addition to the gold dissolution, a small amount of antimony oxide was added to the melt, which gave the glass a reddish-yellow color.'

'Mit dem Goldrubin verwandt ist das »Topasglas«, das man in Neuwelt schon 1829
herstellen konnte und bei Lötz und Schmidt in der Goldbrunnhütte etwa seit 1830.
Neben der Goldauflösung wurde der Schmelze eine kleine Menge Antimonoxid
beigegeben, das dem Glas eine rötlich gelbe Färbung verleiht.'

Sooooo, when contemporary reports talk of 'gold-topaz' glass, is it referring not to the colour gold but to the inclusion of gold in the melt in order to make the colour topaz?

He described topaz-glas as being a reddish yellow colour.  The Queen Victoria bowls are transparent yellow uranium glass colour not at all a reddish yellow colour.

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From Cagney:
[/quote]
As for Mandarin Yellow, Paul V. Gardner in his book THE GLASS OF FREDERICK CARTER ,1971 uses the term, the "fugitive" quality of the glass as if some ingredient is breaking out  [hostile] of  the mix. This may have been Pellat's problem as well.

My reply:
REPLY - I assumed Pellatt was referring to transparent uranium glass not an opaque or opaline yellow uranium glass, but that was an assumption as he doesn't elaborate (he might mention uranium and topaz as a description but would need to look that up again).
Interesting that you mentioned previously about the Steuben Mandarin Yellow being rare because
Spiegl mentioned on page 18 referring to the opaque and opaline yellow versions (my underlining):
'"Isabell" was the name of a matt yellow opaque glass from the Harrach glassworks that was first produced in 1838 and is probably a uranium color, as was the "lemon yellow bone glass" from this glassworks from 1841. Both colors are very rare. The two terms do not appear in Vinzenz Pohl’s recipe booklet.'

I wonder if they're all 'rare' examples because unstable long term?'

Apsley Pellatt says excess of alkali causes continual exudation and refers to the process as 'evil'.
See page 72


https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Curiosities_of_Glass_Making/FCwGAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=gold+topaz+glass&pg=PA144&printsec=frontcover

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This is a Record of the International Exhibition 1862.
The report on 2. Glass Manufactures, Staining and Painting by Sebastian Evans M.A.
reads to me as a damning report on glass manufacture in Great Britain at 1862.  It's quite a shocking read actually. Especially reading pages 400 and 401. In parts it talks of no progress since 1851.

On page 400 and left hand column of page 401 it discusses the exudation of glass.  It appears to have been a real problem.
On page 410 there is mention of Chance's lighthouse glass and it mentions that is liable to 'sweat'.

https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Record_of_the_International_Exhibiti/amwO8K7L9ksC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=powell+%26+sons+foreign+glass&pg=PA407&printsec=frontcover

On page 407 and 409 the report appears to become more positive about other aspects of the exhibition glass though.
But it's quite an eye opening report.

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...
I hope I was right on Harrach using lead glass but I'm not entirely sure!

...

They started using lead glass in 1827.  See their own website Timeline:

https://en.sklarnaharrachov.cz/glass-factory/timeline

[flying free]

  Yes, the "better than the English" I think relates to purity. Reply#111 In your QV thread mentions pitchblendes "nature and prejudice to copper ore". GILLINDERS TREATISE  in relation to Victoria yellow or Topaz states at the end [ page 107 ] "by adding the copper, the color may be made as green a tinge as you wish it". To get a good yellow I would think the copper would have to be refined out or at least kept to a minimum. Whitman mentioned in the letter probably a wholesaler and may be sourcing  uraniumm from Bohemia.

  The processing scheme being set up in Bohemia mentioned in your QV thread#127, makes perfect sense to me considering uranium is being used in a wide array of products usually as a pigment from fine china to wallpaper. Purity matters, there is money to be made here.

 The information in your QV thread #146 stating that Harrachs normal output was lead based combined with the statement in THE PRACTICAL MECHANIC AND ENGINEER 1845 that there is only one glassworks in the region making lead glass tells me that Harrachs would be an obvious contender if indeed the QV bowl had a secret Bohemian lineage.

  The Waiter Spiegl link has blown my mind on two counts. First is the Wintenburgh opaque yellow tumbler on page 17, this color is an excellent match to Steubens Mandarin Yellow, of which probably half of examples extant have spontaneously cracked, very rare. Second is the the flask in the violet section. The design elements of what we call Diamond and daisey and checkered diamond are known from two separate 18th century glassworks in America Stiegels and Amelungs respectively, to this day they still insist that there is no known correlation in Europe to the Stiegels diamond and daisey. These scholars or whatever should leave their bubbles more often.

  Pictured is my candidate for Chameleon glass

A Blog from the Corning here on Steuben Mandarin Yellow and it's instability reasons.  It isn't a uranium glass mix though I don't think?
https://blog.cmog.org/2023/fugitive-color-frederick-carders-mandarin-yellow

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  Photos are selected entries from Geo. W. Leightons copy of William Leightons batch book with other notations. Available online from the Rakow Library at CMOG. Creative Commons, no copyright.
Seems to use topaz and canary as similar if not the same. Victoria maybe a little more green, all use approximately the same amount of uranium. A handful or more other recipes using uranium listed as well.

I have just realised (or perhaps I've put this on the Queen Victoria thread and completely forgotten about it)

Spiegl W. in  Farbige Gläser has a description of what Topas-glas was:

Source - http://www.glas-forschung.info/pageone/pdf/farbglas.pdf
page 30.  Chapter heading 'Rosa Rubin und Topas-glas'

He begins the chapter with a long description of gold ruby glass.

BTW - note to Cagney, Spiegl notes specifically that the Harrach pink glass was lead free (so I'm not sure whether other of their glass was lead glass or if I'm completely mistaken on that point):
'...The Harrach "pink glass", a pound of which cost 2 guilders 40 kreuzers to produce and was thus only slightly more expensive than the "special blue for overlay", as well as the "pink ruby ​​according to M. E. Schmid"[6], were lead-free chalk glasses with gold dissolution. For a while...'



Then in the next paragraph goes on to say (google translated)

'Related to the gold ruby ​​is the "topaz glass," which could be produced in Neuwelt as early as 1829 and by Lötz and Schmidt in the Goldbrunn glassworks from around 1830. In addition to the gold dissolution, a small amount of antimony oxide was added to the melt, which gave the glass a reddish-yellow color.'

'Mit dem Goldrubin verwandt ist das »Topasglas«, das man in Neuwelt schon 1829
herstellen konnte und bei Lötz und Schmidt in der Goldbrunnhütte etwa seit 1830.
Neben der Goldauflösung wurde der Schmelze eine kleine Menge Antimonoxid
beigegeben, das dem Glas eine rötlich gelbe Färbung verleiht.'

Sooooo, when contemporary reports talk of 'gold-topaz' glass, is it referring not to the colour gold but to the inclusion of gold in the melt in order to make the colour topaz?

He described topaz-glas as being a reddish yellow colour.  The Queen Victoria bowls are transparent yellow uranium glass colour not at all a reddish yellow colour.

An example of the colour of topas-coloured glass from Petersdorfer glassworks 1882:
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O34807/covered-jar-petersdorfer-glash%C3%BCtte/

[cagney]

  There is a host of other convincing data to attribute these bottles to Stiegel. It is this notion: "that pocket bottles with overscale floral designs were made on the continent  BUT THERE IS NO KNOWN COROLLARY FOR THE DIAMOND-DAISY MOTIF, AND IT APPEARS TO BE A UNIQUELY AMERICAN DECORATION". Now debunked? Absolutely new information.  This bold statement has been glass gospel for the last thirty years and still propagated to this day. Someone is not doing their homework. You may be pleasantly surprised if you go to this link museumcollection.winterthur.org/ingex.php#.Y1cHFS2ZP1x and enter Stiegel in the search bar in the glass section.

  I think making your cullet as a separate batch unusual and a extra expenditure of time and materials. Possibly " fugitive" ingredients would be fired out or at least stabilized. Probably unnecessary if you have enough of your formula on hand as cullet [glass rejects, etc.]. It was customary to buy outside cullet in this country as they were not in the business of making cullet. By and large this seemed to have worked well in general practice. A large batch using an oxide  somewhat difficult to attain you may not want to take the chance.

  A footnote in a glass club bulletin from 2012 concerning dating of American canary glass contains this statement: "Bohemian glass scholar Olga Drahotova claims that "yellow and gold uranium glass was introduced both in the Reidel and Harrachs Glassworks in northern Bohemia, and in the Sumova mountains in southern Bohemia, almost simultaneously". BOHEMIAN GLASS,1400-1989, p. 69. The authors use of the term 'claims" in this instance seems to minimize Olga's statement. I was wondering what you think.

[cagney]

  museumcollection.winterthur.org/index.php#.Y1cHFS2ZP1x corrected link from above.Hopefully.

[flying free]

  I think making your cullet as a separate batch unusual and a extra expenditure of time and materials. Possibly " fugitive" ingredients would be fired out or at least stabilized. Probably unnecessary if you have enough of your formula on hand as cullet [glass rejects, etc.]. It was customary to buy outside cullet in this country as they were not in the business of making cullet. By and large this seemed to have worked well in general practice. A large batch using an oxide  somewhat difficult to attain you may not want to take the chance.

 

I'm probably misunderstanding or talking at cross purposes (because I don't have a grasp of chemistry for glass making so I probably shouldn't be discussing this at all to be honest ), but Pellatt mentions on page 78 (apologies I have realised the link I gave didn't go directly to this page in his book) within his discussion on how uranium glass is made, his regret that Klaproth doesn't give specific gravities in his analysis. Elsewhere in the book he mentions the uranium glass they made breaking and all having to be replaced.  So it just doesn't sound that easy to make.