Glass Message Board

A pair of candlesticks in uranium green, I think I've looked everywhere but can't find the maker.

  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

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.

That's a generic Murano label and it might be difficult to pin down a maker but it's possibly Cristallo Venezia CCC, some information is shown here:

https://www.20thcenturyglass.com/glass_encyclopedia/murano_glass/cristallovenezia_glass/

 Oddly written evidence of James Powell & Son's link with uranium glass in 1851?

Source: Illustrated London News August 9th 1851
https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Illustrated_London_News/_6VUAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=uranium+glass+powell+%26+sons&pg=PA193&printsec=frontcover

Page 193 written and then engravings of their vases on display on page 196:

Page 193 mentions their stall and says that the engraved group on page 196 is theirs.
The article then says:
'At the same stall is a specimen vase of yellow glass, produced by the oxide of uranium, first applied by Messrs. Powell to the colouring of glass many years ago, at which period it was sold as high as a guinea per ounce, but from it's having been brought since that time into general use, may now be purchased at a much less price per pound'.

It's not definitive evidence is it?  The way it's worded makes it look like Powell's had a yellow vase stood on their stall but it doesn't explicitly state they made it.  It just references that Powell's applied it to the colouring of glass 'many years ago'.

The way it's worded implies that the group is the group mentioned in page 193 but that the yellow glass vase was a separate item and isn't in the group.  Was the yellow glass vase just there as an example of uranium glass produced by some other maker, there to show the colour?

It does seem as though they are saying uranium oxide was expensive when Powell's 'applied it to the colouring of glass many years ago',  but I don't have a clue what a guinea was.