Custard Glass

Custard glass is opaque yellow glass, reminiscent of the color of custard. It can vary from pale ivory to bright yellow, and sometimes it is decorated, often with gold. Collectors use the name Custard Glass, while original makers used a variety of names.

It was one of the "new" colors invented in Bohemia around 1870, which spread to Britain in the 1880s and to the USA by around 1885. It was very popular for two decades in the USA, from about 1896 until around 1908. By 1915 it had become far less common.

Custard glass is not new; it was one of the earliest colors in glass. Opaque yellow glass was used to decorate core-formed glass vessels more than three and a half thousand years ago in Mesopotamia, and later in Egypt.

The Chinese made yellow opaque glass in the 16th century AD, in imitation of yellow glazed porcelain, which was used only by the Imperial family in China at that time. The Palace Workshops (Imperial Glassworks) set up by the Chinese emperor Kang Xi made a wide range of vases and vessels in varying shades of opaque yellow from around 1700 AD onwards.

In the 1880s Thomas Webb's glassworks in England made some beautiful blown glass in opaque custard color. Sowerby of Gateshead, in the North East of England made some superb pressed glass in both ivory and custard color in the late 1880s.

Opaque yellow glass was made thousands of years ago by adding iron compounds to the glass. Later adding a combination of silver, lead and oxide of antimony produced it. In the early 19th century, lead chromate was added to glass to turn it opaque yellow. Adding various combinations and strengths of uranium and sulphur into the glass mix before it was melted made the version that became so popular in Europe and the USA from the 1870s onwards. Most US custard glass will therefore glow in ultra-violet light.

During its heyday in the USA, several companies made custard glass. Dithridge and Co. was possibly the first US company to make custard glass, perhaps as early as 1894.

The most successful company was Northwood Glass of Indiana, who introduced a decorated "ivory" in a pattern they called Louis XV in 1898. This superb custard glass, decorated with gold enamel, was an instant success and Northwood followed it with a series of other patterns.

Encouraged by this success several other companies were soon producing custard glass, notably Heisey and Fenton. Until the rise in popularity of Carnival Glass around 1908, custard glass continued to be highly popular. But it had almost disappeared from the advertisements and catalogues by 1915.