Glass Glossary - A-Co - Co-Fl - Fl-K - L-Ro - Ro-T - U-Z

Lamps. Hanging oil lamps of a tubular shape with a knopped base were made in Venice in the fifteenth century if not earlier. They were occasionally decorated with enamel. Table lamps, some of fantastic form, others based on metal prototypes, were made throughout the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries.

In England and America open-flame float-wick lamps were used for centuries under the name of mortars. These were small bowls of poor-quality glass, measuring 2 or 3 inches [5-8cm] in height. Late in the seventeenth century the vessel was usually of flint glass and raised on a short stem and circular foot. From the mid-1780s it might have a thick square plinth beneath the foot.

Open-flame lamps with fixed central wicks date from the 1690s, the bowl being a small, open-topped container covered by a metal disc through which passed a short tube containing wick. These, like mortars, continued in use until the introduction of paraffin in the 1860s. Central-wick lamps were made in numerous forms, including the wine-glass lamp, peg lamp, handled lamps with stems, chamber lamps, and the lamp with a vase-shaped body from which extended three or four hollow branches. After 1820 they might be pattern moulded.

Latticinio. Familiar name for the filigree glass of Venetian origin, composed of crossing and interlacing strips of opaque and clear glass.

Lattimo. The name given to the milky-white glass made with lead, first produced at Murano, Italy, in the early sixteenth century.

Lava glass. Type of glass made in imitation of mosaic lava-ware pottery. Mount Washington Glass Works, South Boston, Massachusetts, 1878.

Lazy-susan caster. Footed caster, usually metal, with shaft terminating in handle and, at top of foot, movable circular frame with rings in which to suspend condiment containers; probably after 1830.

Lazy-susan shape. Caster [cruet] bottle formed with shoulder projecting beyond sides to rest on ring of lazy-susan caster or cruet frame.

Lead glass. Glass containing lead oxide as a flux; called flint glass [q.v.].

Leveillé, E. Continued the production of art glass in Eugène Rousseau's [q.v.] establishment in Paris from 1885 until some time after 1900. He produced massive glass, frequently crackled, with inlaid colour streaks in Rousseau tradition and a few cased-glass pieces with cut-away decoration. Leveille's glass was eagerly bought by public collections in many countries at the Paris Exhibition in 1900 and is more frequently seen today than the real Rousseau pieces. Many of them are of fine quality and in good taste, but they lack the magnificence of Rousseau's own products. Sculptural effects such as dents, incised spirals, and twisted knots seem to have been Leveille's personal contribution to the style.

Lily pad. Decoration formed from a superimposed layer of glass, that is, a rounded gather [pearl] attached to the bottom of a parison, pulled up over it, and tooled into the so-called lily pad; three principal types: [1] slender stem, bead-like pad; [2] wider and more valleyed stem, bobbly or small flattened pad; [3] long, curving stem, flattened ovoid pad, probably type giving rise to the term.

Lime glass. Glass containing lime; first produced by William Leighton, Birmingham, in 1864; the metal is as clear as lead glass and cheaper, but not so resonant or heavy.

Looking glasses. Documents reveal that looking glasses were made at Murano and silvered in Venice during the sixteenth century, but no examples from this period are known to survive. The earliest survivors date from the eighteenth century, when the Venetians had been surpassed by the French in the art of making such wares. Eighteenth-c. mirrors were often decorated with engraved figures and set in elaborate frames of clear and coloured looking glass. Sometimes candleholders were attached to their bases.

In England mirror plates were made by the cylinder process at Sir Robert Mansell's London glasshouse in 1625 and by the Duke of Buckingham at Vauxhall from 1663. Cast mirror plate was invented in 1688, and most early examples are wheel-engraved. From 1773 finer and larger mirror plates were in production at Ravenhead, St. Helens.

Loopings or draggings. Decorative device achieved by applying threads of contrasting colours to body or parison, which are then dragged upward by a tool and rolled on marver to embed in body; used since ancient times; used at Nailsea, Birmingham, and elsewhere and in American glass on pieces of South Jersey type.

Lucas, John Robert. John Robert Lucas was a partner in a Bristol bottle-making glassworks. In 1788 he removed to Nailsea, and there founded a factory where it is said he made articles for everyday use from common bottle glass. In 1793 Lucas acquired three partners: William Coathupe, Edward Homer, and William Chance. The latter's son, Robert Lucas Chance, founded the Spon Lane, Birmingham glassworks, which became sufficiently prosperous to buy up the Nailsea works in 1870.

Mansell, Sir Robert. Gained control of the English glass monopoly in 1618. He reorganized the industry on a rational basis with more than four thousand workers under his authority. Charles I demanded £1,500 a year from Mansell and his associates, this [p. 279] being paid until the King's death in 1649, when monopolies were ended.

Marble glass. Pressed glass in variegated tints of purple and milk white made during the mid-Victorian period under the name of vitro-porcelain and now known to collectors as purple slag or marble glass. The makers were J. G. Sowerby, Gateshead, and the Kilner firm of Thornhill Lees, Wakefield. The waste or slag floating on the top of molten steel was normally tapped off into moulds and, when cold, was broken into chunks and thrown on to slag heaps. The first slag to be tapped resembled purple marbled glass. This was acquired by the two glasshouses--and probably others--suitably tempered with flint glass and pressed into ornamental ware. The Kilner firm impressed their productions with the mark of a griffin from the early 1860s. Challinor, Taylor & Col, Tarentum, Pennsylvania, made purple slag d ring the 1870s and 1880s.

Margariti. Imitation pearls, sometimes of prodigious size [called paternostri], have been made at Venice since the thirteenth century. They were exported in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and when Vasco da Gama reached Calicut in 1497 he found them in use as currency there.

Marks. A considerable amount of Irish blown-moulded hollow ware--decanters, finger bowls, jugs--bears the name of the glasshouse in raised letters on a flat ring encircling the punty mark. Such marks are unknown on English glass. Nine such marks are known: Penrose Waterford; Cork Glass Co; Waterloo C° Cork; B. Edwards Belfast; Francis Collins Dublin; Mary Carter & Son Dublin; Armstrong Ormond Quay; C M CÁ [Charles Mulvany & Co., Dublin]; J. D. Ayckbowm, Dublin. The last five were wholesale glass sellers whose sales were sufficient to warrant the manufacture of special moulds.

Marriage cups. Venetian glass cups, made to commemorate marriages, and decorated with portraits of the bride and groom, seem to have been produced only in the 15th and early 16th centuries. The most celebrated example is the so-called Barovier cup at Murano, Italy.

Marver Polished marble slab supported by frame on which gather of metal is rolled.

Masonic flasks. See Flasks.

Merese. Glass wafer or button joining bowl and stem of a vessel or connecting parts of stem or shaft.

Metal. Glass either in the molten or hardened state.

Midwestern. Collector's term for U.S. glass made from about 1790 in glasshouses between the Allegheny Mountains and the Mississippi, principally the Pittsburgh-Monongehela area, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and the Wellsburg-Wheeling area, West Virginia.

Milk glass or milk-white glass. Opaque white glass made in imitation of Chinese porcelain, produced by mixing oxide of tin with clear glass; freeblown or, in late nineteenth century, pressed in a variety of objects.

Millefiori. The first millefiori [Italian: thousand flowers] paperweights were made in Venice. St. Louis made them in 1845. In the next year they were made at Baccarat, and before long they were produced at Clichy. Also made in England at Birmingham, Stourbridge, and London.

Monteith. [1] A bowl with a scalloped rim to allow ten or twelve drinking glasses to hang by the foot into iced water for chilling. Late seventeenth century to 1790s. [2] Individual wine-glass coolers resembling finger bowls, but with one or two lips in the rim. Catalogued in early nineteenth century as 'montiffs', 1760s to 1860s.

Mother-of-pearl or satin glass. This was perfected in 1880 by Thomas Webb of Stourbridge. This purely ornamental glass was produced by blowing a core of white opaque glass in a pattern mould. While the glass was still hot the outer surface was dipped into transparent coloured pot metal. A transparent crystal glazing was applied over this. After annealing, the piece was placed in a tank, where acid vapour acted on the surface and produced a satin-like finish. Several colour combinations might be applied on a single piece. Made from 1885 by the Phoenix Glass Company, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Mould-blown. See Blown mouldings.

Moulded glass. Glass ornamented and/or given partial or final body shape by use of a mould; applicable [p. 280] to pressed glass, but reserved generally for blown-moulded.

Murrini. Otherwise called mosaic glass or millefiori. Vetri murrini are decorated with brightly coloured discs within the glass, composed of sections of the canna vitrea. This process of decoration used by the Romans was rediscovered at Murano, Italy, in the sixteenth Century.

Mushroom. A paperweight in which the canes are bunched together and raised in a sheaf from the bottom. Usually surrounded by a ring of lacework at the foot.

Neck rings on decanters. Seven types are found: plain-round, plain-double, plain-triple, feathered, triangular, square, and diamond-cut. The feathered ring is a double ring impressed with transverse lines. Occasionally the rings--there are usually three--do not match. Neck rings were applied by rotating the red-hot decanter and dropping a thread of hot glass around the neck. This became welded by contact, and the surplus was tapered and torn suddenly away. The whole was reheated and a tool pressed upon the ring, giving it shape and width. Joints are always faulty, and visible as hairlines having the appearance of flaws.

Newry Flint-glass Manufactory. A small glasshouse was established in the early 1780s advertising both cut and plain flint glass, and closed 1801. A new glasshouse was opened in 1824, closing in 1847.

Nöstetangen. Norwegian glass manufactory situated near Drammen. Nöstetangen was founded by royal command and under the personal patronage of King Christian VI of Denmark and Norway in 1741. When the Norwegian glass industry was reorganized in 1753 the production of tableware and ornamental glass was concentrated at Nöstetangen and German and English glass blowers were engaged. In 1777 the factory was shut down.

Nursing bottles. See Bottles.

Off-handblown. Freeblown.

Ogival. U.S. design expanded diamond, pattern-moulded diaper in diamond-like formation reminiscent of English nipt-diamond-waies formed by tooling applied threads; usually loosely formed diamonds above flutes.

Opalescent dewdrop [later called Hobnail]. Pressed in full-size moulds; tips of nodules made of opalescent glass; made in various colours. Hobbs, Brockunier & Company, Wheeling, West Virginia, 1886.

Opaline. A word created by modern French collectors and connoisseurs to describe fine colour glass, made during the nineteenth century mainly on a basis of opal glass. The French glass makers of the period called the glass opale or n couleurs opale.

Open-top mould. See Dip mould.

Orrefors. Modern Swedish art-glass manufactory situated in SmÅland.

Overlay. See Cased glass.

Painted decorations. On Venetian glass these were usually carried out in enamel. For a brief period in the mid-sixteenth c., however, paintings similar to those on contemporary maiolica were applied to the backs of large plates in oil colours. Such plates must have been made solely for decorative use, since the paint was not resistant to water as it was not muffle-fired. Two methods of painting were used in England: oil or japan colours hardened by heat but not burnt in, and enamels muffle-fired and permanent. The japanned decoration is rare and pre-dates 1760, naturalistic bird, flower, and vine motifs being usual. Enamelling was at first in two styles of white: a thinly applied wash enamel and a dense full white thickly applied. Motifs between 1750 and 1780 include sporting subjects, conventional scenes, and chinoiseries. Armorial work in vivid colours was fashionable until the 1820s. Colours in a wider range than formerly were used from the 1830s, and included figures, ornaments, flowers, birds, landscapes, and marine views.

Panelling. Moulded contiguous round- or oval-topped arches with: [1] narrow flattened upright in bold relief, mainly eighteenth century; [2] thread-like upright and arch top, often tapering at bottom, like Haynes's 'moulded wide fluting', late 18th-early 19th century. Both often called sunken panel.

Pantin. A factory in northeast Paris, founded at La Villette in 1851 by E.S. Monot, and moved to Pantin in 1855. From the first the factory concentrated on elaborate coloured and decorated glass, and, especially between 1865 and 1900, much fine glass in a magnificent and expensive style was produced there. In 1868 Bontemps [q.v.] mentions that fine copies of Venetian aventurine glass was being made at Pantin. In 1878 Monot fils and a certain M. Stumpf joined E. S. Monot as directors of the factory, and in 1889 they seem to have taken over. By 1900 the owners were Stumpf, Touvier, Viollet & Cie.

Paperweights. The processes involved in making glass paperweights call for great skill. The final correct placing of the pattern within the clear glass calls for a high degree of craftsmanship. This is even more apparent when it is realized that the operations are performed with the glass in a molten, or near-molten, state. Only a general description of the complicated manufacturing process is given here; details vary with the different types of paperweights, and no doubt each factory had its secrets.

The canes to make the pattern are formed by several methods. In one, lengths of coloured glass are heated until they adhere together and form a solid mass. Alternatively, a rod of a chosen colour is dipped repeatedly in molten glass of other colours until a pattern is completed. In both cases, while still hot, the newly made varicoloured rod is drawn out until the section of it is of the required diameter.

The necessary canes are selected and sufficient thin slices cut from them and polished. The pattern is arranged on a piece of thin glass, a mould is placed over this, and molten glass is poured in. The half-formed paperweight is picked up on a pontil, dipped into molten glass, and shaped to the form of the finished article. Fruit and other subjects are made of coloured glass, but the process followed for making the paperweight is similar.

Great care is needed to maintain the temperature of the components throughout the manufacture, or cracking will result. The final operation is annealing: a slow cooling. When it is cold the mark of the pontil is removed by grinding.

In America the successful sale of French paperweights imported into the United States induced manufacturers there to imitate them with some success. Notably the factories of Deeming Jarves at Sandwich, Cape Cod, opened in 1825, and at East Cambridge and South Boston, in Massachusetts, opened in 1818 and in 1837. Not only were the French designs copied but original models evolved. [p. 281]

French paperweights were copied widely in England but it is doubtful whether any were made until quite a few years after the first appearance of the French ones. The glass-making centres of Stourbridge in Worcester and Bristol in Somerset both attempted to produce imitations of the imported article. The Whitefriars Glassworks in London and George Bacchus and Sons in Birmingham also made paperweights in the style of those from Baccarat and elsewhere.

The shapes of the English glass paperweights are usually different from the French ones, and the colour of the glass and of the canes embedded in it is seldom comparable.

The encrusted cameos [sulphides] made by Apsley Pellatt [1791-1863] are, however, a notable exception, and are difficult to distinguish in many cases from the French.

Three glassworks in France were concerned in the production of glass paperweights. They were the Compagnie des Cristalleries de Baccarat and the Compagnie de Verreries et Cristalleries de St. Louis, both situated in the Vosges to the southeast of Paris; and the Clichy glassworks, which stood in the suburb of Clichy in Paris itself.

All three manufactories produced similar work. But there is enough evidence from sepcimens presented by the manufacturers to the French museums on which to base identifications, in most cases, as to exactly which factory was responsible for certain noticeable differences. Dated paperweights from the Baccarat factory are known for the years 1846-9. The St. Louis weights start a year earlier, and also continue until 1849. The dates are often on millefiori weights, are not usually noticeable, and are never set centrally. Any paperweight in which the date is in the dead centre should be regarded with great suspicion.

Parison. Inflated, unformed gather of metal.

Part-size mould. Small two-piece hinged mould; long handle usually attached to each piece to open and close mould; used to impress design on gather.

Pattern-moulded. Term designating glass moulded for decorative pattern or design only, in dip and part-size moulds and expanded; coined to differentiate glass so patterned from that blown in full-size moulds.

Peach glass or peachblow. Peach-like tints shading from cream to rose, red to yellow, or blue to pink, made in imitation of a Chinese porcelain. Made by the New England Glass Company, U.S.A. in 1885, but became very popular when Hobbs, Brockunier & Company of Wheeling brought out a copy of the Mary J. Morgan collection Chinese porcelain vase which brought $18,000 at auction in 1886. Their product was a cased glass with milk-white lining, whereas the Peachblow made by the New England Glass Company and by the Mount Washington Glassworks was the same composition throughout.

Peacock eye. Pressed lacy-glass motif similar to stylized horn of plenty in pressed-pattern ware [see Horn of plenty]: 'eye' usually a large circular dot within beaded ring and ïhornÍ either stippled or fine-diamonded; called also peacock feather.

Peasant glass. See Stiegel type [2].

Pedestal foot. See Foot [U.S. 1.f].

Petalled foot. See Foot [U.S. 1, d].

Picot. Tooled decorative device usually forming crest of wavy decoration or swagging, found mainly on U.S. South Jersey Type glass; sometimes called aborted or vestigal lily pad.

Piece mould. Part-size and full-size moulds composed of two or more pieces [leaves]; necessary for motifs and designs with crossed lines, such as diamond diapering. See Part-size and Full-size.

Pillar moulding. A variant of the blown-moulded process by which ornamental domestic ware could be made cheaply was patented in 1835, by Thomas Green, who gave it the name of Roman pillar moulding. The exterior was corrugated vertically or swirled, while the interior remained smooth. This patent was licensed to others, and a price list issued by Apsley Pellatt illustrates several examples. This was made in colour, too.

Pillar moulding in the United States is associated mainly with a Midwestern commercial glass from the Pittsburgh and Wheeling areas and has widely spaced pillars.

Pillar rib. [1] Pronounced relief, pillar-moulded, rib; [2] wide, short, heavy ribs forming band in a geometric pattern.

Pinched trailing. English term; see Quilling.

Pitkin. See Flasks [7].

Pocket bottle. See Bottles.

Pomona glass Stippled body achieved with acid combined with unstippled portion stained a straw colour; frequently decorated with an applied garland of flowers; New England Glass Company, U.S.A., 1884.

Pontil. See Punty.

Pontil mark. See Punty mark.

Portrait flasks. Group of historical flasks bearing [p. 282] portraits of public figures and heroes. None of those which have been identified seems to be earlier than the 1830s, and many of them fall in the third quarter of the century.

Pot-pouri urn. A specialty of Gjûvik Verk, Norway, in the early nineteenth c. Their development can be followed in the diagrams. They were mostly made in cobalt blue, the shades of which differ from an ink-green tinge to a soft deep blue. Many of them have borders in white. They were also made in opaque white glass made from bone ash, with dark borders.

Pressed glass. Glass pressed manually or mechanically in moulds; molten glass is dropped into a patterned mould, a plunger is rammed into the mould, forcing glass into all parts of the mould and impressing the pattern on it; plunger or core has a smooth surface so that inside of piece being pressed is smooth in contrast to blown-moulded or blown-three-mould glass. Method said to have originated in the United States. It is wrongly called 'Sandwich Glass' from the famous factory at Sandwich, Massachusetts, where it was first produced on a large commercial scale. By 1829 at least six eastern and four Midwestern glasshouses were producing pressed glass. In England mechanical presses for making hollow ware by a single process were installed in glasshouses from 1833. Specialized workers known as ïpinchersÍ used hand-operated presses for making square feet in a piece with a pedestal or double stem. Target and mushroom decanter stoppers were also made in this way.

Pressed-pattern ware. Pressed-glass sets for table, bar, etc.; articles matching in pattern; earliest, about 1840.

Prunts. Applied blobs of glass tooled or moulded into various forms.

Punties. Concave shaping cut on the surfaces of a paperweight. Overlay paperweights are often cut with punties.

Punty or pontil A long iron rod-attached to one end of blown glass during the finishing processes after removal from the blowpipe.

Puntymark or pontil mark. A scar left on blown glass when the punty is broken off. Generally found on the base of a glass. Ground and polished into a smooth depression, usually from ab ut 1750, and invariably so on fine glass from about 1780. Seemingly less frequently ground off and polished on early U .S. ordinary wares than on British.

Purled ornament. Al-over diaper molding with small round or oval compartments.

Purple slag. See Marble glass.

Quilling. Ribbon of glass applied and pinched into pleats. U.S. term, synonymous with English pinched trailing.

Ravenscroft, George [1618-81]. Was granted a patent for manufacturing flint glass [No. 176, 16 May 1674], the entire output of which the Glass-sellers' Company undertook to market, provided he worked to their standard designs. Ravenscroft introduced lead oxide to his glass in the autumn of 1675.

Reliquaries. In Venetian glass sometimes in the form of covered cups, but more usually simple cylndrical vessels on knopped baluster stems, made of clear glass in the sixteenth century and later periods. Also made by Apsley Pellatt, London, during second quarter of the nineteenth century.

Reticello [literally network]. The name usually given to glass decorated with a mesh of opaque white threads beneath its surface, otherwise called vetro di trina or lace glass. It was first made in Venice in the fifteenth century and in 1547 Henry VIII's 'Glasse Housse' boasted a specimen of it. Although the process was soon developed to produce many-coloured filigree glass [q.v.], reticello has held its popularity into the present century. [p. 283]

Reticulated. A moulded pattern in diamond-like formation; also called expanded diamond.

Ribbing. Used when ridged designÍs wider unit is convex; gadroon ribbing. See Gadroon [3].

Rib or Diamond moulding. Straight or twisted lines forming diamonds or other patterns impressed upon the surface of a bowl.

Ricketts glassworks. Wine bottles with seals are sometimes found bearing the mark shown here, that is to say in raised letters round the base. The name seal bearing the words Sam ! Archer is from a bottle made in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The Ricketts family were prominent in the business life of the city of Bristol between 1750 and 1850, and one or another of them was connected with such varied occupations as porter brewing, tobacco, banking, and the manufacture of glass. Jacob Wilcox Ricketts and his brother, Richard Ricketts, were partners with John Wadham and David Evans, successively, in the Phoenix Glasshouse, Temple Gate, which was renowned for good-quality cut glass comparable with that made in London and Stourbridge. In 1811 Jacob Wilcox Ricketts and his third son, Henry, together with two partners, purchased a glassworks known as the Soapboilers' Glasshouse, in Cheese Lane, St. Philip's, Bristol. They continued to make cut glass at the Phoenix factory, and made bottles in their newly acquired premises, both trading under the name of Henry Ricketts and Co. After various changes in the structure of the business it was closed finally in 1923.

Rigaree marks. Applied bands of glass tooled in parallel vertical lines to form tiny contiguous ribs; produced by the edge of small metal wheel.

Rims. [1] Folded: edge finish of foot or bowl top, sheared edge folded back forming double wall; called also welted; [2] galleried, nineteenth-c. bowl-top finish; flaring rim having short, straight side and flattened plane at right angles to body, thus forming cover support; [3] gauffered, on vases and occasionally pitchers; flaring with wide-scallop edge; called also ruffled; mainly nineteenth century; [4] sheared or plain, excess glass cut away evenly and edge smoothed by reheating.

Rolling pins. Were originally made as salt containers during the Napoleonic wars when the salt tax was thirty times greater than the cost of the salt itself, which was sold by the bottle. The first of these rollers produced in about 1800, were of thick bottle glass, the open end being tightly stoppered. Each end was provided with a solid knob so that it could be safely hung in a dry place. By 1820 salt bottles were being made of coloured glass, purple, blue, mottled, and striped. The cold glass tube weighted with salt proved an excellent rolling pin for pastry. Hanging conspicuously on the kitchen wall, the rolling pin became a field for homely decoration, such as a text painted on a background of opaque white glass, and during the 1820s it tended to lose its purely utilitarian purpose and became regarded as a lucky mascot, its filling chosen to suit the occasion. Gilded , painted, and enamelled, they were inscribed with mottoes and good wishes. Biblical quotations, name of the recipient, and a date; others were decorated with seafaring subjects. Some were ornamented with the sharpened end of a specially hardened steel tool, the design being portrayed by means of small, closely spaced dots. Decorations included hounds chasing a hare, ploughing, and paddle steamers. They were made at the glass-making centres of Bristol, Birmingham, Sunderland, and Stourbridge: reproductions have been made in tens of thousands since 1910.

Romer, 1675-1825. A drinking vessel usually of pale-green glass, consisting of a bowl more or less spherical with a slice taken off the top. The bowl opened into a hollow, cylindrical stem studded with prunts and supported by a hollow, conical foot.