Cut glass produced during the first three decades of the 19th century is rightly considered to be some of the finest which has ever originated in England and Ireland. The period saw the dovetailing of available technical expertise with the prevailing preferences and tastes for form and design, resulting in the means of production being ideally suited to cater for the demands of those who commissioned glassware, rather than one outstripping the other as had sometimes previously been the case. This equanimity of process and requirement provided the ideal platform for an era where the art of the glass cutter had time to flourish and perfectly complement the disiderta of the trades patrons. In simple terms, the clarity, stability and refinement of glass had been optimised, and the means by which this high quality substrate could then be decorated had also advanced to a stage where it could be augmented to its best advantage. The even management of temperatures during the manufacturing process was a vital factor in the production of fine glass. By the turn of the 18th century, furnaces had improved to the point where uniform heating of large batches of glass to the optimum level could be achieved, and the ensuing cooling could also, critically, be controlled. If molten glass is cooled too rapidly during what is termed the annealing process it becomes susceptible to thermal shock which renders it prone to cracking when later exposed to any sort of mechanical stress, such as processing on the cutting wheel. The development of the tunnel lehr kilns gave glasshouses the required level of control over their product in this respect. The production process had been refined up to this point by the middle of the 18th century, but the application of decorative features still lagged some way behind in as much as the glass cutters wheel or lathe remained hand-driven - the source of power being a heavy flywheel operated by women or children. Variable speeds, unreliable mechanics and simple human frailty mitigated against the provision of the sort of uniform cutting facility that was needed for fine and consistent finishes to be created, and the number of individual cuts per piece tended to be lower than might have otherwise have been the case due to simple economy of effort. Water-powered lathes began to appear in some of the larger glasshouses by the 1780s, but improvements in performance were minimal. The advent of steam power, however, at last provided the means by which glass cutters could truly begin to take advantage of the fine material which they were being presented with for finishing, and thus the golden age of English cut glass began. As well as being more compositionally stable, glass was now relatively less hard than had previously been the case, and its brilliance and clarity had been virtually perfected over a century of continued development. The new cutting wheels with their consistency and ease of operation allowed for deeper and more numerous cuts to be more readily made, with every facet of every cut adding to the refractive complexity of any piece, building up intricate combinations of complementary prismatic surfaces and bringing vessels to life with sharpness, precision and dancing light. The sight of a full dinner service set at table and illuminated by innumerable candles must have been breathtaking as, of course, was the intention. In order to carry this level of ornamentation, glassware tended to become heavier and more substantial, which inflated prices as it was still subject to increased glass excise duties applied by weight. This restricted the commissioning of the most ornate pieces to the more affluent end of the market, culminating in the Warrington service produced for George, Prince of Wales over the four years to 1810 by Perrin Geddes at their Bank Quay Glassworks in Cheshire. This ultimately comprised of three hundred and forty two individual pieces, all exquisitely fashioned as you would expect, and all engraved with the Prince of Wales feather motif. Another fifteen years of advancement saw the production of the arguably yet more impressive Lancaster service by Wear Flint in Sunderland - with less numerous pieces in total, but a more complete service with regard to the different types of vessel included and with a more extensive range of decorative embellishments having been employed. Eventually however, in the years leading up to, and immediately after, the coronation of Queen Victoria, the decoration of cut glass increasingly became a contradiction of form over function. The glass excise duties were repealed, pieces grew heavier still to accommodate more and more ornamentation, decorative complexity became more important than whether or not a piece was actually fit for purpose and the once brilliant lustre of the style began to be submerged under the weight of its own self-importance. Mass production with lower prices and consequent uniformity further diminished its appeal, the advent of pressed glass moreso and as it fell from favour so the years of the stylistic Regency period became marooned in splendid isolation as the absolute zenith of the glass-cutters art, and the principal source of examples thereof for the truly discerning collector. scottishantiquesinc.co.uk/regency-glass/cut?product_id=1374#.VEiyl4epNOE
Posted on: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 07:47:58 +0000
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