quote.............. "There's so much to learn in the glass world!" - very true, but so much better than being just another collector of plates
I'd not really been aware of this thread, but very interesting to read........ my thoughts are that books are probably the worst of culprits for perpetuating errors and myths.
I don't suppose there are many people here with a copy of Daisy Wilmer's 'Early English Glass' (1910), which the lady used, as much as anything else, to promote the glass collections of her parents and others.
The author speaks a lot about 'Bristol glass' - clear and cut as well as coloured, plus reference to Michael Edkins coloured enameled painting on opaque white glass.
Although he seems to have started his working life in Birmingham, it's very possible that the knowledge that Edkins is best remembered for working in Bristol on 'opaque white glass and ceramics', is why people still speak of Bristol glass when referring to opaque white glass, although there's no guarantee that the glass he was painting on was made in Bristol - but the interpretation stuck, and seems to still.
Can't imagine there were many women authors of glass at the beginning of the C20, and Wilmer, like most authors of academic subjects at that time omits any bibliography or reference sources for her attributions/provenance, but you can imagine collectors taking her words to heart, and repeating her qualifications as to what was or wasn't Bristol glass, which was simply anything she considered had been made in Bristol... clear, cut, blown, moulded etc.
I had written the above and then looked at Ivo Haanstra's words on the subject, although appreciate he has already commented above somewhere.
From Ivo's 'Miller's Glass fact file a - z' .... a pocket book he says............
"Bristol Glass.... A type of opaline named after the town in Great Britain where it was first produced. It was imported from there the late 1700's. Also made in France, Germany, Italy, USA and Czechoslovakia. Very difficult to attribute correctly to a manufacturer. Bristol glass is often decoated (printer's typo) with cold enamel painting."
So it appears the origin of the description 'Bristol glass' probably has nothing to do with blue glass as in Bristol blue, and far more likely to be relate solely to opaque white glass wares imported/exported/painted in Bristol in the latter part of the C18.
P.S. as Benny Hill used to say....... my wife's left Bristol................................................................ and gone to live in Hull.
Topic: What's "Bristol glass"? (Read 22586 times)
