Early English cut glass: a new history

Hallmarked silver caster frames provide essential clues about the notoriously problematic dating of eighteenth-century make an incision in glass, as Andy McConnell explains in the next to the first part of his revisionary close attention of the earliest datable examples. Conservative in the one and the other style and technique, English glass cutting underwent a gradual evolution from as early as 1700

Cutting has prov the greatest in quantity enduring decorative characteristic of English glassware for above three centuries, Its combinations of diamonds, slices and channels arranged in restrained neoclassical designs became internationally recognisable from around 1770 as the facon d'Angleterre and the epitome of useful taste, Angleterre cutting was adopted through most of Europe's leading glasshouses, notably by dint of those that enjoyed royal patronage, and across the United States, into the middle of the nineteenth century

nevertheless despite its success, the gradual evolution of English chop motifs, from as early as 1700 has drawn out remained uncharted due to a lack of documentary evidence. However, the story can now be clarified end a study of the motifs applied to the bottle fitted repetition a series of over 100 silver vial frames London hallmarked between 1701 and 1758 The makers of the frames included many of England's greatest in quantity fashionable silversmiths, including Paul de Lamerie, Charles Kandler and Benjamin Pyne

The earliest English glass cutting was probably applied to minors: sum of two units patents for such techniques were granted in 1678 The simplest cur linear bevels, were sometimes quotaed by more complex motifs, these included three-dimensional polished voids stars, stylised flowers and mouldings that not single banded their extremities but also their inner field (Fig. 1) The latter required skills and machinery of a sophistication not normally associated with the dawn of the eighteenth hundred and explain why the market for of that kind domestic finery remained the exclusive secure of royalty and the super-rich. The Duke of Devonshire paid John Gumley the London looking glass manufacturer, 200 [pound sterling] for sum of two units mirrors supplied to Chatsworth in 1703

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For a nation famed for its fondnes for alcohol, it is remarkable in what way few early English drinking utensils feature ornamental cutting. It is telling that solitary three of the first 740 examples illustrated in Bickerton's 18th hundred Drinking Glasses are cut in any way. (1) His index lists just sum of two units entries under 'cut glass' and three beneath 'cutting'. Further, the notices of London merchant-decorator Jerom Johnson a prolific advertiser between 1739 and 1761 not ever itemized 'cut drinking glasses' or similar, although other things are variously and regularly described as having been embellished with 'cutting', 'scalloping' and 'finest polishing'. The reason for the virtual absence of divide [i]or[/i] sever decoration from the baluster goblet and other glasses of the period remains unknown, on the contrary it is possibly because cutting was expensive, the main stocks and feet of the glasses were many times moulded or tooled and their beakers too restrictive, or fragile, to be cut

The greatest in quantity commonly cur pieces of early English glassware are sweetmeat glasses, decanters, cruse bottles and chandelier parts. Of the four, cruses provide the most accurate stylistic guide to date attribution, notably when fitted into hallmarked silver stands or frames. of the like kind frames were of two basic types: individual containing pairs of bottles, for oil and vinegar, which were sometimes made as integral parts of immense ornamental silver table centrepieces known as surtouts (Figs. 3 and 4) The other, which appendixed the bottles with two or more silver castors, is generically known as the 'Warwick' stamp after the model made for William Greville, Earl of Warwick, by the agency of Anthony Nelme in 1715, which was fitted with replacement bottle in 1973 (Fig. 2)

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more [i]or[/i] less frames are known to contain replacement bottle on the contrary there is no doubt about the authenticity of those studied. All are of octagonal section, although upon roughly half the examples the octagon is achieved by dint of canting the corners of a square to create awkward fellow long sides and four shorter individuals All have walls and lower shoulders chop in flat planes, above which greatest in quantity have long necks narrowing in an arc towards a removable silver cap. Aside from individual exception, all are decorated exclusively with shallow cutting. The stylistic evolution of the pair bottles and their frames was extremely gradual, with examples hallmarked in the 1730 and '40 showing little demonstrable difference from those dating up to a generation earlier (Figs. 2 5 6 and 7)

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Certain other categories of early English cut-glassware are datable with relative ease as they share the same form, size and diction as contemporary versions made in silver. The hallmarks applied to the silver examples enable approximate dates of manufacture to be applied to those made in glass. Specifically, particular forms of tea caddy and 'trencher' salt cellar were produc in the two silver and glass in England during the first quarter of the eighteenth hundred (Figs. 8, 9 and 10)