Topic: Victorian Pan Top Rummer

[NevB]

I think this petal moulded pan top rummer is from around 1860 although it may be a bit earlier. Height is 15cm. weight around 560gms. with a polished pontil with swirl, and it's lead glass.

[neilh]

I'm struggling a bit with nomenclature on stemware Nev. I'm doing a chapter on pressed glass goblets for my Percival Vickers book, which is halfway through rough draft. You've gone for petal moulded here, but I see no consistency in naming. Some say flutes for everything. Some say petal. Some say petal flutes. There's also "slice cut" on cut glass goblets. Do you believe there is an official nomenclature for these items? I'm going for petal flutes as a general description unless someone tells me off.

[NevB]

Hello Neil, I got the description from ones on the Scottish Antiques website so don't know if it's correct, although it seemed about right.  don't know if there are any official names.

[Paul S.]

would agree that on cut glass this appearance would be described as slice cut, and I'm having trouble with the word flutes here, but petal moulded seems to me a better description.      However, what I'm having more of a problem with is the expression 'pan top' - I'm seeing this one as simply a very wide mouth on a drinking glass.     Am I correct in suggesting that pan top is really only applicable to sweetmeats, jellies, custards i.e. non liquid contents?    

[Ekimp]

Millers Collecting Glass says “A much simpler style of cutting emerged in the 19thC; it involved cutting flat vertical slices from the glass, usually around the bottom of the bowl on drinking glasses, and was known as ‘Broad-flute’ or facet cutting”.

Bickerton shows a bucket bowl rummer cut around the bottom of the bowl with vertical slices (with curved tops), he has gone for ‘fluted base’. I assumed the type described as ‘petal’ need to look like petals when viewed from above, like Nev’s glass. Probably more on similar conical shaped bowls than bucket bowls and possibly just the moulded versions of those.

The bowl shape of Nev’s glass looks closest to an ogee bowl to me.

Paul, Bickerton has wine glasses and ale glasses with pan top bowls.

[Paul S.]

thanks Ekimp  -  perhaps there is a wider degree of meaning for 'pan top' than I'd remembered  -  certainly if you look at the pan tops on sweetmeat glasses they show a substantial section at the top of the item where there is a ballooning-out of the shape - as opposed to simply a widening of the glass.      As I understood it, there should be a definite outward bulge at the top from the rim downward for 1 - 2 cms.             Regret I don't have Bickerton now, so unable to see the items you mention, but thinking back to the 'Rummer' book, I don't recall seeing a rummer with a pan-top.
I wouldn't be tempted to call this one pan-topped I don't think  -   I was looking on the Scottish Glass web site earlier this evening and they have some pan-tops on jellies and custards from memory.
I'm unsure quite why the pan-top shape evolved - perhaps it simply allowed greater capacity?