American Brilliant Cut Glass Only a Fad?

It all began in 1876 with a rich dinner party hostess who viewed the Centennial Exhibition in Pennsylvania. There American glass blowers and cutters exhibited exquisite American Brilliant Cut Glass. She bought some, and the fad ensued.

American glass companies employed European glass workers educated in techniques in wheel-faceting of glass designed and cut in Ireland and France. U.S. cut glass could be as clear with a diamond-y brilliant as the more expensive European cut glass. By a year after the Exhibition all the high-end hostesses in Newport RI owned a large piece of American Brilliant Glass for the dining table. Pieces like a huge punch bowl with matching under-plate and little handled cups, and those tall showy cake stands in selective areas down the center of a dessert table appeared as a marker of GOOD TASTE.

By 1889 the American middle class emulated the rich with a few choice pieces of cut glass, such as a water pitcher (always on the table) or a lemonade pitcher with matching tumblers. Before the end of the trend for American Brilliant Cut Glass, all new brides owned a piece, such as a nut dish or a handled compote dish, like the one I inherited from my grandmother Ruth Sophia.

Making Cut Glass Involved Many Artisans

American Companies Hawkes and Libbey at the forefront employed glass blowers who made the shapes, then employed designers, who figured out the geometry of the designs. They employed wheel cutters who pressed the glass vessels into large and dangerous rotating iron or stone wheels. The glass process involved chemistry as well as created privileged formulas with high lead oxide for the “sparkle.” Hand polishers polished the glass to eliminate razor shape edges. Later in the first part of the 20th century they used acid baths to eliminate sharp edges. But these pieces sparkle less, and are less valuable.

Identify an early and more value piece by extremely complex geometrical designs. How to tell? If you feel the glass, on a cut glass pierce you feel the sharp edges. Piece blown into a mold you will NOT feel those sharp edges.

Commensurate with clear and bright American Brilliant Cut Glass, the industry made ‘cut to clear’ glass, which means the glass blower blew a “gather” of glass into a shape. Then they quickly “redipped” the glass into molten colored glass. When they put the glass against the wheel and cut in facets, the design showed from the layer of color to the layer of clear. Both American and European factories made this type of glass; Bohemian glass was a stand-out.

When introduced in 1876, the glass entered the market in a BIG way, and caught the attention of America. In the last years of the 19th century a thousand glass cutting shops existed. By 1908 only a hundred such shops produced glass called American Brilliant.

American Ingenuity Fueled the Industry

Instead of using a coal fired furnace, we developed natural gas furnaces to control the heat level.

American Factories accepted the new fad of electricity early on, and replaced steam driven cutting and polishing machines with electric machines. As a desire for more intricate cutting grew American factories added silica to make the glass heavier and stronger. Famous American patterns emerged such as those by T G Hawkes, in Corning NY: Grecian and Chrysanthemum patterns.

King Edward VII of England ordered American Brilliant Cut Glass in a complete service for his palace. The White House also ordered a complete set of tableware. This caused a bit of a problem because nothing hot could be served in such a vessel, but heck it didn’t matter. The presidents of Cuba and Mexico followed suit.

In the first quarter of the 20th century the great artisans of this style added engraving and etching to the grid of intricate patterns faceted into the glass. They called this Flower Period, and featured insects, birds, and flowers set in cartouches into the faceting.

Unfortunately the value of such pieces is at an all-time low. No one wants elaborate anything on a dining table now, and the value of the piece pictured is $50. Sorry to say, but it might have cost that much in 1900.