SPATTER, STRIPE AND SPANGLE

Here are three more recognisable types worth collecting. Spatter is a term you will hear when you are shown pieces which seem to be made of coloured glass with a mottled effect, with clear glass overlay and often having applied decoration of clear glass as well. Apart from candlesticks, there are sugar bowls, lamps, nightlights, even the little hats and shoes mentioned under “Toys.” Then there is another type which comes in coloured stripes, opaque white in combination with pink, green or lemon. This also usually has an overlay of clear glass. Silvered glass gets its effect from having colouring matter between two skins of glass, the outer being cut away to reveal the silver.

Apart from the colour and texture effects, much was made of applied decoration with contrasting glass rosettes or leaves. The Venetian style ewer on the front cover has what are called “prunts” of little pink flowers; this is a family often seen in the shops. Similarly there was a popular line developed by Stevens and Williams in verre-desoie, or satin glass, with decoration of acanthus leaves, the bent stem serving as the feet and the leaf being laid along the side of the piece in the most attractive way. There was also a little bowl in the “Nailsea” style of looped coloured glass with a blackthorn spray. In another style, taken from the Japanese, a rustic climbing spray is run up round a thin vase, with daisy rosettes stuck on all the way up.

Antique Collector MagazineMany of these pieces, as will be seen, are “crimped” at the top. This is often combined with patterns where glass colour threading is pulled up to make loops all round. There were also ingenious patterns made from small air bubbles.

OPAQUE AND PAINTED

Opaque or semi-opaque glass gives us a very large field indeed. I suppose that there are more blue and pink and green opaque glass vases on the dealers’ shelves than any other kind of coloured glassware. Much of this is painted with flowers and pictures, often by lady amateurs working at home, for you could buy these vases plain and do your own decorating, as with china. Dark blue and black are often decorated with enamel painting, and it might be as well to say that the use of the word “enamel” glass for the opaque effect can be rather misleading. Opaque glass is usually achieved by the use of oxide of tin, in the same way as the glaze on delftware pottery, whereas true enamel is a sort of glass paint applied as a decoration.

Another rather confusing and much overworked word in this connection is “Bristol” which you will hear applied to almost any kind of opaque glass. There was a glass, a beautiful opaque white, enamelled in colours which people often mistook for porcelain, which was undoubtedly made in Bristol in the eighteenth century, but it was made elsewhere as well. These cheaper sorts we have just been talking about may well have been made there, too, but much more came from Stourbridge and other glass centres.

Distinct from the completely opaque glass is opaline, with its fiery glow from transmitted light, and there are many attractive pieces of “milk and water” glass, like a window covered with frost.

With regard to arrangement, this is clearly cabinet or shelf collecting, but it seems to me that the first thing to decide is whether to go all out for one or other of these types, or whether to aim at a judicious mixture. I would be all in favour of the latter course, for to me the very variety and ingenuity of this coloured and decorated glass is its great charm. I would carefully look at it all before buying anything, and then carefully select pieces which will show each other off; buy a tall restrained opaline vase flanked by perhaps coloured lustre vases with clear glass drops, or a careful choice of clear coloured decanters and vases.

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