A History of Glassmaking in London, and its Development on the Thames South Bank.
David C. Watts
Watts Publishing, 2009, Size A4, 183 pages, full colour, soft covers. ISBN 978-0-9562116-0-0
Price inc. P+P, UK £25, Air Mail to Europe £28, Rest of World £35.
Members Price: delivered to GC meeting £20.
Overseas payment please in £ Sterling, to D.C. Watts.
Anyone interested in the history of glassmaking in the nations’ capital will be more than familiar with three key works on the topic; Buckley’s Old London Glasshouses (1915), Powell’s Glass-making in England (1923) and Bowles’ History of Vauxhall and Ratcliff Glass Houses and Their Owners, 1670-1800 (1926). Whilst in more recent years Eleanor Godfrey and Robert Charleston, amongst others, have contributed specific details of history to certain periods, there has not been a substantial work specifically dedicated to the topic of glassmaking in London for the last eighty or so years. Consequently this new addition to the established cannon of scholarship is a long overdue and eagerly awaited volume. As he states so vividly in his preface, David takes us on a tour of London “through the intricacies and politics of glass making” so that we may “discover and envisage those places where glass was made”.
After a brief introduction to glassmaking in general, the book is divided into two parts; one concerning the history of the industry and the other the glasshouses themselves. The first section starts with a general introduction to the history of Southwark and the Southwark school of glass painters. It then provides an overview of the documented beginnings of the fineware industry, first under the immigrant glassmakers Jean Carré, and Giacomo Verzelini, and then the Englishmen Jerome Bowes and William Robson. What then follows is a detailed and technical examination of the glassmaking process, tracing many of the developments in furnace technology and design. After this the historical narrative resumes again with a discussion of Edward Zouche and the change to the use of coal as a fuel, and the period of monopolies under Robert Mansell.
The second half of the book takes the form of thirteen chapters that discuss specific locations at which glassmaking took place, as well as any associated owners and workers. Due to the large number of different businesses, these have been arranged geographically rather than chronologically. Known sites south of the river in the districts of Vauxhall, Southwark and Greenwich are all outlined, as are those in the City such as Salisbury Court, Whitefriars and Blackfriars. Finally the book ends with a detailed examination of the works to the east around Ratcliffe.
Undertaking an even-handed summation of all these business over such a long period of time is a difficult task, even in a volume of this length, and it is inevitable that some elements have been omitted. For example, whilst sites operating into the 19th century are outlined in the second section of the book, in the first section the general history of glassmaking in London ends at the revocation of Mansell’s monopolies in 1642. Furthermore, this reviewer would also have liked to see more reference to the archaeological evidence (inevitably!), and whilst much still remains unpublished, other datasets are in the public domain. Wasters demonstrating that vessel glass was produced at Bear Gardens (1), at least for a short period of time, were found at Bankside and one of the Falcon furnaces was excavated at Hopton Street (2). One last criticism is that although Watts has clearly developed some original ideas, he sometimes does not cite the sources, or inspiration, for his assertions. For example, he mentions that the Kings Arms glasshouse first opened in 1700 and not 1706 as is usually suggested (p. 129), whilst he also states that the hitherto unknown location of the Woolwich glasshouse was between the Royal Dockyard and the Royal Arsenal (p. 65). Although there are no reasons to doubt these suggestions, it would be good to know upon what evidence they are based.
However, such quibbles are minor indeed, and do not detract from the overall appearance of the book. This is a clearly very personal account that has been researched over many years, and as such it provides a very accessible summary of the industry and the often complex individuals that drove it. The colour photographs, mostly taken by the author himself, illustrate the sites as they appear today, whilst many of the supplementary images give life to the historical narrative. As a result, with his mixture of scholarship and straightforward style, Watts has produced a book that can be thoroughly recommended to both the historian and amateur enthusiast alike.
Hugh Wilmott
Authors explanations
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1 The site excavated was not that of the glasshouse.
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2 Cited as “Cox’s Gravel Lane (Falcon Millpond) glasshouse”, page 121, and the archaeological reference is given on page 127, note 12.
THE JABLONEC BUTTON
Authors Dr. Ludmila Kybalova, Dr. Petr Novy, Sarka Siruckova
Published by Muszeum skla a bizuterie v Jablonci nad Nisou, 2007
Hardback 21cm by 24cm
192 pages 224 illustrations
Can only be ordered from the museum. Contact by e-mail alena.svobodova@msb-jablonec.cz)
Price 380 Kc (now around 19 USD, £9.50) + postal charges.
This fine book, with a print run of only 1000, is written in Czech, German and English, with the full text being given in all languages rather than the non native languages being given in summary as is so often the case.
Jablonec is an old town in Northern Bohemia, now the Czech Republic, with a long history of glass-making. Indeed although Jablonec was the leading button making city of the world between the mid 19th century and the year 2000 the authors are at pains to point out that button making was only a small part of the manufacturing production of the city, third after the production of chandelier drops and costume jewellery.
The city has a splendid Successionist building as it’s decorative arts museum that has recently been refurbished. The authors, all connected to the museum, state that the museum collection has around five million individual buttons, as well as a large collection of paste jewellery and glass.
In the first chapter Dr. Kybalona gives first a brief overview of the history and use of buttons from the Iron age to the start of the 19th century. Up to then buttons were largely a luxury item more or less hand made for the wealthy. By the 1860’s there were prosperous Czech factories making buttons for a global demand and in France “In 1877 it looked as if all ladies were smitten with a sort of button mania. They flooded their clothes, in particular the outer layer of their clothing, with a full shower of buttons: not by the dozen, but by the gross, no longer for purposeful dressing, but for exaggerated preening.” During the First World War there was a great demand for metal buttons for the military and the stamping machinery needed for this production were used for civilian production after the war. After the second world war the use of first poppers, and then zips and Velcro gave competition to buttons as a means of holding clothes together, but buttons have always also been about display. This chapter is illustrated with 19th century fashion plates in colour.
In the second, longer, chapter, Dr. Novy gives a detailed history of ‘The Jablonec Button’, full of detailed information that is not readily available elsewhere. This chapter is divided up into nine sections entitled :-
‘The beginnings of button production in the Jizera mountains,
The birth of the Jablonec glass button,
“Button Fever” in the 1806’s,
The era of sobriety and crisis – the 1870’s,
The whims of fashion – the 1880’s and 1890’s,
Searching for ways to overcome the crisis – the registration of designs, patents, and exclusive goods,
The victory of the factories - the beginning of the 20th century,
The dice are thrown – 1918-1948,
Crossing the Rubicon – the second half of the 20th century and the present.
This chapter, (with 125 end notes!), gives a most detailed account of the Czech button making industry in all materials and is accompanied by contemporary photographs.
The second half of the book, by Sarka Siruckova concerns ‘The collection of buttons at the museum’ consisting of:-
the original town collection,
the Weisskopf collection of glass buttons 1800/1922 sewn onto art card with there original German labels,
the Art Nouveau buttons of A Bargas,
buttons made by Gebruder Feix mainly sold in Paris
and the Jinrich Waldes button collection put together by Jindrich Waldes (1876-1941),”world king of buttons” for the Button Museum of Prague which he founded in 1916.
This section is illustrated with 87 pages of colour illustrations of buttons made from:- verre eglomise, glass cut pressed and painted, pressed metal, porcelain, artificial horn, brass, silver, thermosetting plastic, ‘wound glass’, celluloid, plastic, mother of pearl, and wood. Part of this section of the catalogue is divided into:- Men’s buttons, Ladies’ buttons, ‘Other buttons’ not for a third sex but buttons made as souvenirs or for animal accessories such as horses harnesses.
This is a scholarly book for students of both buttons and fashion.
John P Smith July 2007
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IL VETRO IN EUROPA
Oggetti, Artisti, e Manifatture Dal 1400 al 1930
Author Silvia Ciappi
Published by Electra, Milan, Italy 2006
Hard back, boxed. 28.5cm high by 25.5cm 370 pages over 400 illustrations.
ISBN 8837 0361 83 €180
This fine book is an overview of European glass from the late Middle Ages to the Art Deco period, in Italian and from an Italian perspective, but not in a biased way. Each chapter is meticulously end noted with references up to and including books and articles published in early 2006.
After an introduction the book is divided into 6 sections, one for each century. Each section starts with a long overview, illustrated largely with contemporary paintings and documents, followed by around 10 to 20 glass objects illustrated full page in colour, with a commentary on the facing page which includes 2 to 3 smaller illustrations of related objects.
The sources are extraordinarily wide ranging. For instance the section of 18th century glass contains an itaglio from Madrid, a painting from the collection of the Prince of Liechtenstein, a Dutch glass in The British Museum, glasses in Munich, Pavia, Rosenborg Copenhagen, an English glass in Milan, the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Murano, Cologne, Stuttgart, La Granja Spain, Dresden, Barcellona, The Victoria and Albert Museum London, Altare Italy, Florence Italy, The Metropolitan Museum New York, Naples and Modena Italy. One of the joys of this book is to discover wonderful items in some of the less well known Italian museums.
This is not a ‘cut and paste’ picture book, the lengthy bibliography is lacking the trivial pot boilers but lists all the important sources the author has used.
Any books must have gaps in it, and a reviewer is bound to point them out, if only to prove that he or she has read the book. There wonderful classical examples of English glass, including a Ravenscroft jug in the British Museum, and the early 4 arms candlestick in the Victoria and Albert Museum, but there is no baluster glass, surely the apogee of English glass making nor any British cut glass. Also in the nineteenth century there is engraved glass by Paul Oppitz but no cameo glass by Woodall or his contemporaries, despite being lauded at the world fairs of the period.
This reviewer has very little understanding of the Italian language and it is to be hoped that the publishers bring out and English language edition for the benefit of the many glass lovers and scholars who have the same impediment as the reviewer.
John P Smith November 2007
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GLASS of the ALCHEMISTS. Lead Crystal – Gold Ruby 1650-1750
ISBN 978-0-87290-169-8
Published by The Corning Museum of Glass
357 pages, Hardback, 315mm by 260mm, illustrated in full colour.
Author. Dedo von Kerssenbrock
With contributions by Colin Brain, Olga Drahotová, Paul Engle, Werner Loibl, Martin Madl, William R Newman, Pamela H Smith.
The book accompanies and exhibition of the same name at The Corning Museum of Glass, June 27th 2008 – January 4th 2009
This book is really two books and could well have been published in two volumes, which, as it weighs 2,720Kg, might have been a good idea. One part of the book is a series of essays concerning how the ‘Alchemists’, the chemists of the day, helped in the formulation and hence manufacture of glass. This at the time when the study of material sciences was rapidly changing from something akin to witchcraft to what we would now call ‘the scientific method’. The other part of the book is a catalogue of the exhibition, which comprises of the finest examples of glass of the period that Corning either owns or could borrow. There is no cross-referencing between the two parts.
The catalogue is a scholarly joy of 117 exhibits and will be discussed later. The discussion of ‘Alchemists’ is quite a dense, academic read. This reviewer has a first degree in Chemistry and still had to concentrate hard at times, those with a science-free background may struggle. Explanation is clear and concise but no attempt has been made to popularise or over simplify.
The Introduction, by the author, sets the scene. To quote:- The term “alchemist” is about as precise a professional characterization as “healer” would be for an otorhinolaryngologist. Alchemy was a form of worldview that involved amateurs as well as professionals. He refers to Neri and Kunckel, both well known in the glass world, and Glauber, famous in the world of chemistry.
There follows an essay on alchemy by Pamela H Smith, Professor at Columbia University, New York City, whose present research covers the relationship between science and art in early modern Europe. She states that alchemy was more than fraudulent or credulous attempt to turn base metals into gold but overlapped with medicine through their common use of distillation, sublimation, and other processes of investigation. It also overlapped with art as the production of pigments involved philosophical understanding of matter, particularly the use of gold in the production of ruby glass.
William Newman, Professor at Indiana University, Bloomington, writes on the changes of understanding which lead from alchemy to chemistry as we know it today via such luminaries as Starkey and Boyle. From the four humours, via corpuscular theory the emphasis was on experimentation leading to our eventual understanding of the periodic table.
Paul Engle, translator of Neri’s L’Arte vetraria, diverts us to a newly rediscovered manuscript in The Ferguson Collection in the library of Glasgow University. This is an unpublished document in the hand of Neri and another, dated 1599, illustrated in ink and watercolour on ‘the whole of alchemy’. The drawings are charming and almost too good to be true.
Werner Loibl, a former German museum director, traces the influence of Johann Rudolf Glauber who believed that colours could be extracted from glass, he was a discoverer of gold ruby glass and worked on other colours. He influenced Crafft, Becker, Del Bono, Kunckel, Scapitta, Diem, Stumpf and others.
The indefatigable Olga Drahotová, doyenne of Czech glass discusses Bohemian glass-making of this period illustrated with glass from the Buquoy glassworks and other glass ‘huts’ where chalk based glass was developed.
Martin Madl, curator, The National Museum, Prague, discusses the work of Becker
and his downfall caused by N. ein ruinierter Collonel. (N. The drunken Colonel.) The National Museum has been a major leader to this exhibition.
Colin Brain discusses the development of lead glass by the merchant George Ravenscoft using the knowledge of Da Costa following work by Glauber, Newton, Boyle and Hooke, all men with ‘alchemist’ leanings. His views on this development diverge considerably from the views of David Watts recently published in Glass Circle News.
Finally Dedo von Kerssenbrock-Krosigk, formerly curator at Corning, now at Düsseldorf, discussed gold ruby glass, the subject of his doctoral dissertation. He starts with Kunckel’s work at Brandenburg for the Elector of Cologne and then moves to Schlackenwerth, Bohemia, Potsdam and the Dresden of Augustus the Strong, where Böttger, the alchemist and chemist to the Meissen porcelain factory, was working.
Most of the above was written by people whose first language is not English and Richard W Price is to be congratulated on editing the text so that it reads as if written by one person. The illustrations have been chosen with considerable care.
There is a brief section at the back where several scientists write about what is now going on at the cutting edge of glass science today.
The catalogue section starts with vessels of alchemy but quickly moves to decorative glass starting with a gilt mounted German beaker dated 1613 which was formerly in the British Rail Pension Fund. We then move through northern Europe until we come to the “Butler Buggin Bowl, English, 1676-1690, and two sealed Ravenscroft items. After 18 pieces of British glass, including No.35, see illustration, the exhibition returns to Bohemia and Silesia with clear engraved glass and such curiosities as a large cast medallion of Louis XIV by Bernard Perrot of Orleans 1685-1700 and a blue glass medallion of a philosopher, surely slumped and a precursor of the work of James Tassie.
34 items, (24 loaned and only 10 from Corning’s own collection,) of red glass are the raison d’etre of the exhibition. Many are mounted in silver gilt, a few are plain but the majority are cut or engraved. The photography is superb but even the best photographers cannot always make very clear the engraving. In this reviewer’s opinion fine engraving should be reserved for clear glass, where, like in rock crystal, the light can shine through unimpeded. It is unlikely that such a collection of gold ruby glass will ever be put together in one place again.
John P Smith September 2008
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