The purpose of this book is to present new information about the late 19th & early 20th century cut glass industry in Corning, New York. The book focuses on T. G. Hawkes & Co because of the recent discovery of the latter's archival materials, 1880-1890.
"In this detailed narrative of the business Tuthill founded, the patterns he created, the techniques he used, and the other artisans and consumers he knew, Maurice Crofford has written the story of an earlier, more elegant and leisurely era. For those knowledgeable about cut glass, the development of the forms will be instructive; for others, who simply appreciate the beauty of the glass, the numerous black and white photographs will appeal. Beyond both of those dimensions, however, Crofford provides a fascinating insight into the ways industrialization and mass production and, more especially, the automobile, changed forever the ways upper-class Americans lived, entertained, and displayed their good fortune. In Tuthill's career, moreover, Crofford finds an example of American ingenuity and creative genius in responding to changing times."--BOOK JACKET.
This invaluable guide is not only a basic reference, but an identification tool that can be taken to auctions, shows, exhibits, and antique shops. This revised sixth edition includes a newly updated value guide, the catalog names for various shapes in cut glass, and the identity of 280 patterns of American and Canadian glass by catalog name. Many patterns are identified for the first time. It points out 130 cut glass pieces by company signatures, patent records, and magazine advertisements. In addition, this revised edition shows you how to analyze a pattern by finding the miter outline and matching it and the motifs to an illustration or picture in a catalog or book. It gives practical advice for buying and collecting unidentified pieces and answers questions on acid polish, repairs, investments, insurance, upgrading, and selling a collection. Over 900 exquisite photographs were taken expressly for this book. No collector, dealer, or appraiser will want to be without it!
Picture, if you can, a world without glass. There would be no microscopes or telescopes, no sciences of microbiology or astronomy. People with poor vision would grope in the shadows, and planes, cars, and even electricity probably wouldn't exist. Artists would draw without the benefit of three-dimensional perspective, and ships would still be steered by what stars navigators could see through the naked eye. In Glass: A World History, Alan Macfarlane and Gerry Martin tell the fascinating story of how glass has revolutionized the way we see ourselves and the world around us. Starting ten thousand years ago with its invention in the Near East, Macfarlane and Martin trace the history of glass and its uses from the ancient civilizations of India, China, and Rome through western Europe during the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Industrial Revolution, and finally up to the present day. The authors argue that glass played a key role not just in transforming humanity's relationship with the natural world, but also in the divergent courses of Eastern and Western civilizations. While all the societies that used glass first focused on its beauty in jewelry and other ornaments, and some later made it into bottles and other containers, only western Europeans further developed the use of glass for precise optics, mirrors, and windows. These technological innovations in glass, in turn, provided the foundations for European domination of the world in the several centuries following the Scientific Revolution. Clear, compelling, and quite provocative, Glass is an amazing biography of an equally amazing subject, a subject that has been central to every aspect of human history, from art and science to technology and medicine.
Murano Glass and its Collectors in Aesthetic America / Melody Barnett Deusner -- Venetian Mosaics and Glass in the United States, 1860-1917 / Sheldon Barr -- "Where Have Titian's Beauties Gone?" : Sargent and Whistler on the Streets of Venice / Stephanie Mayer Heydt -- Interweaving Worlds : Antique and Revival Lace in Italy and in the United States, 1872-1927 / Diana Jocelyn Greenwold -- Sparks of Genius : American Art and the Appeal of Modern Venetian Glass / Crawford Alexander Mann III -- Biographies / Brittany Emens Strupp, Crawford Alexander Mann III.
Edward Drummond Libbey was a glassmaker, industrialist, artist, innovator and art collector. Both practical and creative, he forever changed the glass industry with the automatic bottle-making machine and automatic sheet glass machine. This work examines the long career of Libbey, particularly his innovation of American flint cut glass, his contributions to the middle-class American table through affordable glassware, and his enormous art glass and painting collections, which eventually formed the basis for the Toledo Museum of Art's collection. Libbey single-handedly revolutionized glassmaking, a craft which had gone virtually unchanged for 2000 years.
Invaluable for the collector, curator, and dealer, this classic edition presents original catalog material from the Corning archives, including long-lost pattern identification. It is an in-depth account of Corning's history, including craftsmen and techniques, and its prestige as the country's largest producer of cut glass at the turn of the century. The reprint is updated to reflect the present-day locations where the pieces are displayed, with an afterword describing the Corning Glass works and its activities over the last 20 years. Paper edition (unseen), $29.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
A biography of the “Owens” in “Owens Corning”—a brilliant but humble inventor with nine companies and forty-nine patents bearing his name. He stands next to Thomas Edison in the pantheon of inventors. Commercial products stamped with his name are ubiquitous in modern life. His inventions are directly responsible for safety glass in car windshields and consistently proportioned medicine jars—and helped to significantly reduce child labor in America. His designs have changed the way we illuminate a dark room and buy pasteurized milk. Michael J. Owens has left an indelible mark in human history, yet his name often has been overlooked publicly, until now. Michael Owens was a driven but unassuming man who shunned the spotlight, wanting only to create. In this first biography of a visionary, artist, and craftsman, Quentin R. Skrabec’s research has uncovered a resourceful, colorful, and dynamic industrialist and inventor. This insightful account sets the stage for Owens by going back to the beginning—the history of glass as an art form. Today, his flourishing legacy includes Owens Corning, employing nearly twenty thousand people in over thirty countries.