WINE-GLASS ENGRAVED, DRINKING GLASS IN COLOURLESS GLASS WITH ENGRAVED DECORATION
covered goblet with engraved portrait ok carl
Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, by Franz Gondelaeh,
Germany, c. 1700.
Spillcr’s contemporary and pupil was
Jager, an outstanding glass-
engraver. He was born at Reichenberg in
Bohemia, appeared in Berlin in 1606 and
was made a member of the Berlin glass-
cutters’ guild in 1606. Both Spiller’s and
Jager’s glasses often show crisselling (a
network of tiny cracks in the glass), a
defect found in the Potsdam glass used at
the Berlin workshop. The third engraving
workshop to be set up for a German court
was that of Franz Gondelaeh (or Gunde-
lach) for the Court of the Landgrave Carl
of Hesse Cassel. Gondelaeh, sometimes
called the greatest German master of the
art, was born at Gross-Almerode in Hesse
in 1663 and becameJiirstlicheGIasschneider
to Carl in 1695. It is not known when he
died, but he was still described as Hof-
glasschneider at Cassel in 1716. He some-
times used Potsdam glass for his work,
occasionally marking his pieces with an
eight-rayed star.
It is only towards the end of the 17th
century that a genuine distinction between
glass-cutting and glass-engraving can be
made. For the first time it is obvious that
different types of equipment were being
developed for cutting and for engraving.
The glass-engraver’s equipment was light
enough at this period to be carried, where-
as the glass-cutter’s equipment, used for
facetting, intaglio (deep cutting) or rough-
ing out for finer engraving, was hardly
portable. The large interchangeable
wheels for cutting were rotated on a heavy
hand-turned cutting machine, a form of
equipment which survived until the
modern period. By the end of the 17th
century, water power was in use for turn-
ing the wheels, and was probably used to
do the all-over facetting as an obligatory
prelude to the engraving on glasses of
Bohemia and Silesia in the 18th century.
Intaglio or Hochschnitt cutting would not
have been possible without this extra
power.
The Bohcmian-Silcsiart glass-engraving
industry produced glasses that were event-
ually exported as far as Persia and the East,
as well as all over Europe. The Bohemian
workshops were predominant in the late
17th and early 18th centuries, but after
1725 Silesia overtook them in importance.
There were workshops in Schreiberhau,
Hermsdorf, Kynast, Warmbrunn, Peters-
dorf and Breslau, as well as other places in
the Hirschberger Tal. The finest Silesian
work occurs partly in the Rococo period,
when characteristic forms appear, such as
shell-shaped, lobed and scrolled cups,
which were frequently gilded as well. Most
of the work remains anonymous, but some
of the finest work is known to have been
done by an artist of Warmbrunn, Christian
Gottfried Schneider (1710-73). All other
German centres remained subordinate to
the Bohemian-Silesian workshops, but the
name of Anton Wilhelm Mauerl (1672-
¦737) of Nuremberg should be mentioned
for his work with its accent on Chinoiserie.
By the beginning of the 18th centur;
wheel-engraving as a decoration on glass
(often of English manufacture) was be-
coming established in popularity in Hol-
land. The chief exponent of the art there
was Jacob Sang, a Saxon who worked in
Amsterdam. Dutch wheel-engraving was
very German in style, and certainly at first
was the work of German craftsmen resi-
dent in Holland. Jacob Sang engraved and
signed a number of glasses with dates
between 1752 and 1769 during his stay at
Amsterdam. He was probably related to
Andreas Friedrich Sang, the Thuringian
glass-engraver. In 1738 A. F. Sang was
recorded at Weimar, as Hoch/iirstlich
sdchsiscke Glasschneider. His son was the
Brunswick Court glass-engraver, Johann
Heinrich Balthasar Sang. Wheel-engrav-
ing had already been practised in Holland
in the first half of the 18th century,
possibly by another member of the Sang
family.
WINE-GLASS ENGRAVED 165 mm (6-5 in.)
DRINKING GLASS IN COLOURLESS GlASS WITH
ENGRAVED DECORATION
John Frederick AmelungGlassworks, L.S.A. 1703
III. 220 mm (805 in)
A group of engraved glasses thai enjoys
great popularity with collectors comprises
the so-called Jacobite glasses, all engraved
with symbols of the Jacobite cause in
England. The various emblems include the
star, oak-leaf, butterfly, caterpillar, grub,
carnation, forget-me-not, lily-ot-the-val-
ley, daffodil, honeysuckle and sunflower.
The most important symbol, however, is
undoubtedly the Jacobite Heraldic Rose,
which may have six, seven or eight petals,
representing, it is thought, the Crown of
England. Other glasses have actual por-
traits of Prince Charles Edward, the Young
Pretender, engraved (not very skilfully) on
their bowls. The words FIAT, AUDEN-
TIOR UK) and REDEAT are often found
on these glasses. The exact significance of
each symbol, including buds in relation to
the roses, is the subject of much discussion,
bin no one yet knows all the answers. The
majority of the glasses have air-twist
stems, but baluster stems and opaque
twists are also lound.
Some of the most noteworthy engraved
glass of North America was produced at
John Frederick Amelung’s glass-works
which was established at New Bremen
near Frederick, Maryland, in 1784. Efforts
to establish a glass industry had been made
during the 17th century, notably at James-
town in Virginia, where the first attempt
was made around 1608. However, the first
successes in the business were scored
mainly by Germans and Englishmen in the
18th century, when several important
glass manufactories were started, the
Amelung glass-house being the most
successful. It operated for only one decade,
but its clear glass decanters, glasses and
goblets set a high standard. The glass
illustrated is European in style, showing a
sturdy form and restrained engraving,
with foliage and a finely drawn inscription
‘George Trisler’ and the date 170.!, en-
closed in the foliage. The shallow wheel-
engraving found on these glasses often
features commemorative inscriptions and
dales
The period of prosperity after the Napo-
leonic wars known in Germany as the
Biedermeierzeil brought about the revival
of the art of glass-engraving, particularly
in Bohemia. Massive feet and bold poly-
gonal facetting are characteristic of these
heavy engraved pieces. The commoner
examples arc somewhat clumsily engraved,
but the finer pieces are equal to anything
from the previous periods. Glass-engravers
tended to work independently and to move
about; thus Dominik Bimann (1800-57)
worked at Prague, but went to Franzens-
bad during the season, and August Bohm
(1812-90) visited England and America.
Romantic landscapes and hunting scenes
showing faithful perspective were popular.
The Pelikan family of Meistersdorf near
Kamnitz and the Simms of Jablonec were
also notable engravers in this style.
Engraving through a silver stained surface
to clear colourless glass was popular, as in
the goblet illustrated, which has engraved
panels flashed with clear yellow glass.
It is worth while taking a close look at 19th
century English wheel-engraving, since so
much of it is still to be seen. As Hugh
Wakefield points out, the early years of the
century could truthfully be called the
heyday of cut glass, and engraving was
only used where cutting could not reason-
ably be used on a glass vessel. Simple
wheel-engraved motifs appeared often
enough on wine-glasses, and larger vessels
might have lettering in the form of mottoes
and inscriptions. Floral and other plant
motifs were used effectively as in the loving
cup illustrated. On the other hand, repre-
sentatives of figures were unusual, and
appeared only on the more special pieces.
Difficult subject matters were avoided, and
it could be said that engraving in the early
years of the 19th century was considered
suitable only for commemorative pieces
and for the bowls of wine-glasses, where
cutting could not be used.
Kngraved by a member of the Wood family of
Brettell I ..me, Kngland, 1840-50
Hi. 209 mm (117; in.)
JUG WITH DECORATION
Shown ai the 1851 exhibition by J. Ci. Green,
Kngland. Ht. 337 mm (13*25 in.)
In the early 1840’s surface stains were
being used in the Stourbridge area on
glassware, broad flute cutting being added.
The stain was normally ruby-red, derived
from copper rather than the yellowish-
brown given by silver. The bottle illus-
trated is ruby-red stained and was en-
graved by a member of the Wood family of
Brcttell Lane, near Stourbridge. The
bottle forms part of the movement in the
1830*1 and 1840’s, when the scope of
engraved work seems to have widened in
England. The Wood family had an im-
portant engraving shop in Stourbridge
around the 1840’s, and Thomas Wood was
established enough to produce an inde-
pendent display for the 1851 exhibition.
\i the firm of Thomas I lawkes in Dudley,
near Stourbridge, William Herbert and
the rest of his family were becoming noted
during the 1830’s for the engravings they
produced for the firm. It was soon to
become apparent that wheel-engraving
was a technique well suited to Victorian
taste.
Shapes popular for wheel-engraving in
Victorian times included globular decan-
ters and water carafes. These forms were
developed in the early years of Victoria’s
reign, and proved so suitable to the
technique of wheel-engraving that they
probably helped to popularise it. The
hemispherical champagne glass introduced
about this time could only be whccl-
engraved and not deep-cut. At the 1851
Exhibition the most significant engraved
glass was that exhibited by the London
dealers, particularly by the firm of J. G.
Green. Their ‘Neptune’ jug, a large Greek
oinochoe shape elaborately engraved, was
much illustrated at the time and is
illustrated here. The oinochoe shape be-
came very popular in the later part of tlu-
cent ury, but the most usual shapes for
engraving for the late 1850’s, 1860’s and
1870’s were footed ovoid shapes used lor
decanters, claret jugs and vases. These
were blown thinly, and offered a large ana
By Frederick E. Kny, Thomas Webb & Sons,
England, probably later 1870’s
Ht. 308 mm (12-13 in.)
The decanter illustrated was engraved by
the Bohemian Frederick E. Kny, one of
the most distinguished engravers in Eng-
land in the 1860’s, who remained prom-
inent for the rest of the century. He had a
separate workshop on the premises of
Thomas Webb & Sons at Stourbridge.
He, like other artists, favoured the well-
known three-lipped decanter shape for
engraving. This shape, as seen in the
illustration, with its high shoulder and
spherical stopper, often with a tiny ball
finial, was a result of the current admira-
tion for Greek pottery forms. It looked
best when blown thin, and called for the
lighter work of wheel-engraving for decor-
ation. The shape came into its fullest
popularity in the early 1870’s, appearing
in the Stevens & Williams pattern books in
January, 1871, and in the Thomas Webb
and Richardson firms at roughly the same
time. By the last decade of the century it
was one of the best-known international
shapes.
The Techniques of Taking Away
JIG WITH ENGRAVED FERN PATTERN
John Eord, Scotland, about the i88o’s
Hi. 247 mm (075 in.)
Another shape that was most popular for
wheel-engraving in England in the 1860’s
was the tankard-shaped water jug, with
straight, slightly tapering sides. This style
of jug was used for fine engraving until
near the end of the 19th century, but since
then the shape has become too common-
place for such elaborate treatment. Motifs
for engraving in the 1860’s were Renais-
sance arabesques and Greek-inspired de-
signs, while in the later 1860’s and 1870’s
naturalistic designs of flowers, birds and
hunting scenes became more common.
The fern patterns on the jug illustrated
originated with the Scottish firm of John
Ford of the Holyrood glass-works. To-
wards the end of the 1850’s an emigrant
Bohemian, J. H. B. Millar, set up a work-
shop for engraving glass in Edinburgh,
closely connected with the firm of John
Ford. He introduced the fern patterns at
the London exhibition of 1862 and they
remained very popular for a long period.
VASE WITH ‘ROCK CRYSTAL.’ ENGRAVING
by Frederick K. Kny, Thomas Webb & Sons,
Kngland, abou” 1880. Hi. 235 mm (0/25 in.)
WINE-GLASS WITH INTAGLIO FLORAL ENGRAVING
Slcvcns & Williams, Kngland, about 1000
Hi. 159 mm (625 in.)
A new style of decoration appeared in
England towards the beginning of the
1880’s, which was called ‘rock crystal’
engraving. What differentiated the new
technique from normal wheel-engraving
was that all parts of the work were
polished, instead of the engraving being
kept unpolished to contrast with the
surrounding surface. This uniformly
bright appearance led to a new approach
in the design of the engraving. Instead of
the engraving being a pattern on the glass,
it took over the whole surface of the vessel
and became deeper cut, and more in the
character of carving. The effect was an
even more sumptuous method of decorat-
ing English lead glass, in line with the
international trend for brilliant cut glass,
and it was also in keeping with the
simultaneous development of carved cam-
eo glass. The workshops of F. E. Kny
(see illustration) and of William Fritsche,
which were attached to Thomas Webb &
Sons, produced ‘rock crystal’ glass
throughout the 1880’s and 1890’s.
‘Rock crystal’ glass was produced in
France in this period, and possibly Thomas
Webb’s work was inspired by the work of
the French glass-makers. Stevens & Wil-
liams at Brierley Hill near Stourbridge
also produced ‘rock crystal’. In the early
1880’s there was a phase when ‘rock
crystal’ pieces were made to imitate
Chinese jades. The final fling for Victorian
engraving came with Stevens & Williams
intaglio work of the 1890’s, as in the wine-
glass illustrated. Intaglio is deep engraving
carried out on wheels that would normally
be used for cutting, a technique some-
where between cutting and engraving. The
names of John Northwood and Joshua
Hodgetts are particularly associated with
the development of this method. The
technique was worked out at the beginning
of the 1890’s, and was an established part
of the Stevens & Williams output by the
later 1890’s. It was also being used by
American firms, such as T. G. Hawkes of
Corning, New York.
Intaglio work was produced notably by the
firm of L. C. Tiffany at the factory at
Corona, Long Island, in the U.S.A.
towards the end of the ioth century and
the beginning of the present century.
Their ‘intaglio’ glass differed from English
intaglio, since besides referring to the
cutting and engraving of glass, the term
also referred to the practice of applying
contrasting coloured glass in the engraved
parts and re-cutting so that engraved work
appears on decorative inlays. The flower
and leaves on the vase illustrated have been
treated in this manner, being in contrast-
ing colours to the base glass. Glass that
had been cut or engraved either in intaglio
or in cameo relief by the Tiffany factory
was always referred to as ‘Carved’ in their
brochures and catalogues. The glass fac-
tory also produced simpler relief-cut
objects without colour contrasts and used
coppcr-wheel-cngraving on many of their
vases, bowls, lampshades and tablewares.
The finest achievement of Wilhelm v. Eiff
(1890-1943) was his work in high relief
(Hochschnitt) on glass. He raised it from a
miniature art, giving the technique the
dignity of sculpture. Von Eiff was the son
of a craftsman at the Goppingen branch
of the Wiirttembergische Metallwaren-
fabrik, and at a very early age mastered the
techniques of engraving both metal and
glass. He worked for a time in Lalique’s
jeweller’s studio, and also with the famous
glass-engraver Charles Michel in Paris. In
1913 he paid a short visit to the Art School
in Stuttgart, and in 1921 he worked for a
while with the glass designer Stephan
Rath. In 1922 he was appointed professor
in cutting and engraving on glass and
precious stones at the school in Stuttgart.
He had a great influence on his pupils, who
now can be found from Scotland to Japan,
doing work in many different ways, from
each other’s products as well as from v.
‘GIRLS PLAYING BALI-’
engraving by Edward Hald, Orrefors, Sweden, 1019
BOWL IN PALE BILE GLASS ENGRAVED WITH ANGEL
AND DANCING MAIDENS
By Simon Gale, Orrefors, Sweden. 1927
Hi. 160 mm (63 in.)
Of great importance to the history of art
glass were the appointments in 1916 and
1917 respectively of Simon Gate and
Edward Hald as designers to the glass-
works at Orrefors. Edward Hald (b. 1883)
was a painter who had studied with
Matisse in Paris, and had already designed
pottery for the factory at Rorstrand.
Orrefors, founded in 1898, is situated in
Smaland, the main glass-producing dis-
trict in Sweden. Here, Hald had to learn
the very basics of glass-making from K nut
Bergqvist, master glass-blower at the
factory from 1914. It was the engraved
glass produced at Orrefors which won the
factory its first international fame. There
was already an engravers’ shop at Orre-
fors, with Gustaf Abels at its head, before
Gate and Hald were appointed. As soon
as they settled in, they began to experi-
ment with this technique. Hald preferred
a more delicate approach to engraving
than Gate’s style, producing exquisite
objects like the vessel illustrated, directly
inspired by the art of Matisse.
Simon Gate (1883-1945) the first glass-
designer employed by the Orrefors glass-
works, was the son of a prosperous farmer
and trained as an artist in the grand
classical manner at the Academy in Stock-
holm. Like his contemporary Hald, he had
to learn glass-making from the beginning
when he joined Orrefors, and he concen-
trated first on the art of engraving. The
style of the early engraved work of the
Orrefors glass-works reflects the taste for
luxury products in prosperous post-war
Stockholm —an elegant nec—classicism.
Within this tradition both Gate and Hald
developed their own styles. Gate’s work is
noted for the heaviness and large dimen-
sions of the vessels, decorated in deep
carving with figure subjects from the
Bible, classical mythology and like sources.
It is claimed of Orrefors that no other
glass-works has had such an international
influence over glass-production. For the
first three decades of this century the
attention of the glass-works was directed
to the art of engraving glass.
Jarosla Horejc (b. 1886) is a glass designer
of Hungarian origin. One of Drahoftov-
sky’s pupils, he produced for the Paris
Exhibition in 1925 four vases with en-
graved decoration, one illustrated here,
decorated in magnificent classical style
with figures cut in very high relief
(Hochschnitt). The well-known Viennese
glass firm, J. & L, I.obmeyr was estab-
lished in 1823; since that date three
generations of Lobmcyrs had worked as
dealers in and refiners of glass in Vienna.
In 1918 Stephen Rath, a nephew of
Ludwig Lobmcyr, established a branch
cil the firm called ‘J. & L. Lobmeyrs Neffc
Stephan Rath’ in the North Bohemian
town of Steinschonau (or Kamcnicky
Seno). Here glass was made to Rath’s
specifications and decorated to the design
of artists by the finest engravers of the
district. Horejc’s work is a direct result of
this; in 1962 he was still continuing his
classical tradition of engraving with richly
varied figure subjects from the Lobmeyr
Studio.
John 1 lutton was born in New Zealand in
1906. He is probably best known for his
work in England, at Guildford, and for the
engraved panels he produced for Coventry
Cathedral. The freencss of his style of
engraving owes much to his equipment, a
movable wheel driven through a sheathed
flexible shaft by an electric motor. Water
is fed to the wheel by a wet piece of cloth
held in a bracket attached to the hand grip.
Instead of applying the glass to a stationary
wheel in the conventional manner of
engraving, Hutton is able to move his
wheel at will over the whole surface of the
glass. The result is a fine, shallow, light
engraving with rather a rough finish.
Hutton has translated some of the Coven-
try figures on to large vessels produced by
Whitefriars, one of which is illustrated.
His art is forceful and dramatic, and
reveals a new facet to the technique of
engraving glass.
Steuben Glass Works, U.S.A., 1045-50
Hi. 1525 mm (6 in.)
Frederick Carder (1863-1963) of the
Steuben Glass Works at Corning, New
York, developed the ancient cire perdue
(lost wax) process for the production of
Diatreta. In this process a wax model of
the object was made from a gelatin mould
taken from a plaster of Paris replica of the
object. The wax model was covered with a
ceramic mould. After a drying period of
twenty-four hours the mould was placed
over boiling water which melted the wax,
leaving the moulded impression in reverse
of the original model. Cold glass in the
form of rods or lumps was placed in the
mould, which was then fired in a kiln until
the glass had run into every part of the
mould. The mould and glass were next
slowly annealed, and finally the mould was
broken away, leaving a glass casting of the
original model. The Diatretum pieces
made between 1945 and 1959 show how
Carder had perfected this method of
glass-casting.
ENGRAVED BY Ј. JANE WEBSTER
England, 1963
One of the more successful modern free-
lance wheel-engravers of Britain is Jane
Webster, a former student of Stourbridge
College and Royal College, where she
gained the Princess of Wales scholarship.
Her chief concern, as it also is with her
contemporaries Laurence Whistler and
David Peace, is the satisfactory relation-
ship between the design on one side of the
glass and the part that shows through from
the other. Her husband, Cyril P. Aron,
designed her copper wheel-engraving
lathe. She specialises in commemorative
presentation pieces such as the one pre-
sented to Princess Anne on the occasion of
her visit to Pilkington Brothers’ St. Asaph
factory in Wales in 1972. She has also
engraved a set of twelve windows in a
synagogue at Stanmore, and an overdoor
panel for the Edinburgh Weavers’ show-
room in London. The chalice and paten
illustrated were commissioned by the
architect, Harry M. Fairhurst to be pre-
sented by the academic staff for the chapel
of the St. Anselm University Hall of
Residence at Manchester.