5 minute read
By Maria Yeye
Mount Washington’s Sicilian Glass
By Maria Yeye
2022 Summer Glass Curatorial Fellow New Bedford Whaling Museum
Mount Washington Glass Company. Sicilian, or Lava glass vase, circa 1878-1880. NBWM collection, 1989.65
Located in New Bedford, Mount Washington Glass Company (1876-1894) is among the most revered manufacturers of “art glass,” a decorated and often highly-colored glass produced during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Sicilian or ‘Lava’ Glass is sometimes identified as Mount Washington’s first art glass. Mount Washington, however, produced other types of decorated wares which preceded their renowned Sicilian glass. The firm’s first foray into art glass included Iridescent or “Rainbow” glass, for which the firm was the first in the U.S. to receive a process patent. Enamel painted Opal glass, typically acid treated to give the surface a matte finish, was another specialized production. The Sicilian glass though, was the first ware produced by the firm to receive a patent by implementing their own experimental techniques. The risks they took in making original wares really came to define Mount Washington as “tastemakers” of the period. Other producers of art glass in the country included the New England Glass Company and the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company.
During the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876, Mount Washington was among the exhibitors. With elaborate, custom created displays, they exhibited their decorative glass wares, cut glass, and their specialty, glass chandeliers. It was likely at this Centennial Exhibition that Frederick S. Shirley (1841-1908), the firm’s superintendent and visionary leader, likely first saw the newly introduced ‘lustered’ glass produced by Austrian firm Lobmeyr.1 Lobmeyr may also have displayed another influential ware. Their “Bronze Glass”, created from a technique popularized from the English firm Thomas Webb and Sons, may well have served as an inspiration for Mount Washington Sicilian glass.2 Two years later, Mount Washington began producing their own version of this glass using green or sometimes blue glass coated with the patented “lustre finish”, advertised as being sold alongside imported bronze glassware. Shirley patented the process for producing a finish called lustered or iridescent and received the patent in 1878. Very few positively identified Mount
1 Lobmyer was a Vienna based firm begun in 1823, and were established leaders in engraved glass and enameled glass. 2 Hajdamach, Charles R. 1993. British glass: 1800-1914. Woodbridge:
Antique Collectors’ Club, 116. Shortly after the Centennial, on June 18, 1878, Shirley received a patent for his Sicilian glass, which, “relates to an improvement in the manufacture of glass… adding lava, or volcanic slag in suitable proportions, so as to adapt it, especially for the imitation of antique ceramics, and cheap reproductions of the works of ancient masters.”3 The shapes were inspired by ancient wares and supposedly contained volcanic material taken right from the lava flows of Mount Etna. He advertised it as, ‘“the novel Sicilian Ware… from the Lava flows of Aetna.”’4 It was a solid example of marketing, defining the company as tastemakers, as during the 1870’s both the lost city of Troy in Asia Minor, and Mount Etna on the eastern coast of Sicily were being excavated and special attention paid to the newly unearthed artifacts found there. What could be more appealing than taking home an actual piece of flowing lava to display in one’s home? The advertisement for “The New Bronze Glass, in the Original Grotesque Forms” ran from November 21, 1878, to January 2, 1879.5
The inspiration for Sicilian glass, like the majority of art glass that Mount Washington manufactured, came from porcelain and other ceramics. These imitations gave upper-middle-class consumers a way to keep pace with trends of traveling and collecting, even if they didn’t have the means to do so. Various aspects of the Sicilian wares were inspired by ancient decorative objects: the asymmetric pieces of glass that were applied to the outside mimic the ‘spangled’ glass produced by Ancient Romans; the shapes of the vases mimic those amphorae of Greek antiquity. The dark color, while imitating cooled Lava and allowing consumers to supposedly take home a piece of Mount Aetna herself, could have also been a
3 Wilson, Kenneth M. 2005. Mt. Washington and Pairpoint Glass:
Encompassing the History of the Mt. Washington Glass Works and
Its Successors, the Pairpoint Companies. 1 1. Woodbridge: Antique
Collectors’ Club, 111. 4 Ibid., 111 5 Ibid., 111. The advertisement ran in a serial called Crockery and
Glass Journal (1875-1961).
Frances Fannie Eliot Gifford (1844-1931). Untitled landscape. Signed “GFE,” dated May 9, 1869. Pencil on paper. One of 37 drawings in a sketchbook. NBWM 1974.18.35, Gift of Anne R. Dechert.
Eliot Gifford (1844-1931). Untitled landscape. Signed “GFE,” dated May 9, 1869. Pencil on paper. One of 37 drawings in a sketchbook. NBWM 1974.18.35, Gift of Anne R. Dechert.
form of imitation of Attic vases,6 which were coveted, but far too expensive for the typical consumer. The trend for black wares was revived during the late 18th century, when Josiah Wedgewood and Sons produced a black stoneware called Black Basalt Ware in imitation of a newly discovered Roman vase.7
Although Sicilian Glass never reached the success achieved by future art glasses introduced by Mount Washington, like their Rose Amber or Burmese
6 Attic Vases are a style of clay vase originating in Ancient Greece.
They typically feature painted red figures on a black background and portray an array of scenes ranging from daily life, important social rituals, and mythology. 7 Revi, Albert Christian. 1967. Nineteenth Century Glass: Its Genesis and Development. Exton Pa: Schiffer, 238. glass, more patents were filed for it than any other type of glass produced by the firm. Shirley filed three separate patents between 1878 to 1879. The first patent pertained to the chemical make-up for the Lava component, the second to shapes and decoration. None of those listed on the patent have proof of production. The third patent received in 1878 for ‘Lava flanges made in imitation of bamboo or cane,’ were put into production but used Opal glass. Furthermore, as exemplified by the rare Pink Sicilian glass, for reasons unknown, but perhaps in an attempt to reignite interest in the ware, some shades of pink Sicilian glass were produced, a marked deviation from the concept of adding Lava altogether, but resulting in a memorable ware.
Mount Washington Glass Company. Pink Sicilian vase, circa 1878-1880. NBWM Collection, 2003.81.
