Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass Paperweights => Topic started by: flying free on November 18, 2017, 11:10:00 PM
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I am sure you have probably all seen this report but just in case not, because it was incorrectly spelt in the transmission to online document, I thought I'd add it:
Report from the exhibition of 1862 and including some reports or comments on the 1851 exhibition:
http://archive.org/stream/illustratedrecor00shaf/illustratedrecor00shaf_djvu.txt
' It was
particularly noticed by the Jurors, as it must have been by all visitors of taste, that
74 ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE
great progress lias been made in engraved glass. Many of the decanters and wine-
glasses were exquisitely enriched by appropriate ornamentation, in which the vine, its
grapes, leaves, and tendrils were so beautifully engraved as to render them objects for
the eye to gaze upon, rather than for the hand to seize. Among the successful efforts
at revival, we must place the Venetian glass, so much adinired for its lightness — no
lead being used in its composition — and for the beauty with which it is frosted,
gilded, and threaded. Our exhibitors, besides presenting Venetian glass in sets of
gilded bottles and glasses, have also successfully imitated the milk fioro work, which
consists of bundles of threaded glass packed in a globe of clear white glass, or forming
an ornamental paper weight. (my bold)
If you click on the link you will need to scroll down to page 74 to find the info. They make it clear they are discussing 'our' exhibitors in this section under glass.
m
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It's a pity the Jurors did not state the name of the company or companies showing the millefiori "globes" or "ornamental paper weights". And it sounds as if they were describing what in modern terms could be called "twist canes" rather than slices of millefiori canes.
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I 'think' milk fioro was a typo in the script, but maybe, just maybe, they were describing clear glass weights with lattimo filigrana canes in? Are those what you have called 'twist canes' Kev?
So it could in fact be a typo and a misunderstanding of what 'millefiori' was?
m
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Yes, "twist cane" is a simple terminology for "threads of colour, or plain white, or a mix of the two which are twisted during the pulling". Trying to use the correct Italian terms is something I usually get wrong. Filgrana / Filigree (in the English meaning!) / Retorti / Reticello ... etc. ... too confusing for me. ;D
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oh me too :)
I now wonder what they really meant?
And yes, having now read so many reports contemporary to that period, they are all SO woolly on who did what.
I suspect it may partly be to do with company secrets and hiding stuff from competitors.
And I think it is what leads to the effusive praise of 'we do this so well now, faaaar better than our competitors' and that stuff.
But I also suspect that in fact it might be that some of it came from the competitors (Bohemia especially) in the first place!
m