BL sent me a fabulous yellow Steuben glass set, a barware service designed and created in the late 1920s by Frederick Carder (1863-1963). He headed Steuben glass from 1903-1930. BL wonders about the color of his glassware set and the history. The pattern is referred to as Twist Optic. Carder named the color Bristol Yellow.
Carder, a fan of Chinese Ming porcelain, admired the Imperial yellow glaze which held symbolic weight as representing power, royalty, prosperity, summer, and earth. Yellow glass is uncommon because of unstable fault lines. Carder, trained in glass chemistry, experimented with the composition of yellow glass as early as 1903 to create a stable yellow glass. He wanted a semi opaque yellow hue. BL’s glassware set isn’t opaque, but bright and clear—and stable. It’s not the semi-opaque glass that mimics Mandarin yellow porcelain. Carder reproduced the Mandarin Yellow of early Ming porcelain in glass, but because that glass tends to break only six pieces remain in existence at the Corning Museum of Glass.
Problems with Creating Yellow glass Using Cadmium
The vessel might develop ‘glass sickness’ which causes moisture on the glass surface when the glass doesn’t properly annealed. Annealing involves a gradual cooling of very hot glass after it’s blown to prevent internal strain from the chemicals used to create the glass over time. Carder invented so many new colors and shapes for glass that he inspired the Carder Steuben Glass Association. This group of collectors study Carder’s designs from 1903-1932.
Carder grew up in a pottery making family in Staffordshire England. He left school at fourteen to work in at the kiln but went back to school at night to study chemistry. Glass fascinated him when he visited John Northwood, who created the reproduction of the Portland vase, the cameo glass reproduction of the ancient Roman vase. Carder became Northwood’s apprenticed.
Carder moved to Steuben Glass in Corning New York in 1903 at the invitation of owner Thomas G Hawkes. In 1932 Steuben decided to make colorless glass, so Carder left to become Design Director at Corning Glass. While at Corning in 1935 he oversaw the creation of the cast panel glorifying the worker for the Rockefeller Center. The four-ton molded glass panel sculpture, the world’s largest, is the chief decoration of the main entrance, called the Palazzo d’ Italia. In his eighties he designed glass sculptures until he retired at 96. Carder became known for his creations in the styles of Art Nouveau and Art Deco. BL’ s barware set is in the Art Deco style. I see Noel Coward sipping a cocktail from one of these vessels, wearing a cut-away tuxedo, white tie, and collar in the mid 1930s.
Corning Museum of Glass
As a ten-year-old I remember going to the Corning Museum of Glass and the Frederick Carder Gallery. My parents rented a cottage in upstate New York, and Dad bought a tiny bud vase for Mom engraved with a loving message. I’ll never forget the visit. Luckily Frederick Carder liked to golf, because one of his golfing buddies, a wealthy Corning area businessman, purchased many of Frederick’s pieces. By the 1940s, golf buddy Robert F Rockwell amassed a large enough Carder Collection that he founded the Rockwell Museum at the Carder Gallery at the Corning Museum of Glass.
Today Carder’s works are in that museum, but also in the Chrysler Museum of Art, and the Detroit Museum. Frederick Carder and Thomas G Hawkes co-founded the Steuben Glass Works in Corning in 1903. Carder ran the company, producing iconic designs and colors, till 1932. In 1918 Corning Glass purchased Steuben but kept Frederick on as manager. During the 82 years he worked with glass he produced dazzling works that influenced modern design. BL’s set is one of those. That set, at seventy-two pieces, to the right buyer, could be worth as much as $15,000. A good place to sell is Los Angeles Modern Auctions.