Shaded Opalescent Glassware

Glasses with raised opalescent white designs on their surface were a popular item in the late nineteenth century. Inexpensive tableware and decorative articles were produced by Hobbs, Brockunier and Company of Wheeling, West Virginia; Alexander J. Beatty and Sons of Steubenville, Ohio; Phillip Arbogast of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; John Bryce and Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; King and Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Doyle and Company of the same city. There were still other manufacturers of this type of glassware, both foreign and domestic. The wares produced by these various companies differ in form and in coloring, but the basic manufacturing technique in each case is the same.

Shaded opalescent glassware was manufactured in this way. A colored bulb of glass was heavily coated with a sensitive crystal glass containing bone ash and arsenic. It was blown into a pattern mold to produce a raised decoration on its outer surface, after which it was cooked slightly and then reheated at the glory hole. The raised designs, having cooled below a glowing red heat, upon reheating, struck an opalescent white color. The finished product was an article of glassware with a colored background on which a raised opalescent white design appeared.

The ware can be found in a multitude of patterns, with background colors ranging from transparent crystal right on through the entire spectrum. Hobnail, Dew Drop, Bullseye, Optic, Spot Resist, Opalescent Bar, Opalescent Rib, Checkered Bars, Zig Zag, Seaweed, Floral, and a host of other well-known patterns were manufactured. Some of the designs, such as Opalescent Rib, Checkered Bar and Zig Zag, were patented designs. The last named were registered by William Henry Barr, assignor to Alexander J. Beatty and Sons, on April 3, 1888.

In 1886, C.F.A. Hinrichs sold imported opalescent hobnail glass called "Lustred Pea-spotted" in a variety of colors.

On June 1, 1886, William Leighton, Jr. and William F. Russell, both assignors to Hobbs, Brockunier Company, patented a means for producing opalescent glassware. The article to be made was first press in a full-sized mold to form nodules or bosses on its exterior surface. Being composed of a sensitive opalescent glass, upon reheating at the glory hole, the bosses struck an opalescent white. Pressing the articles in full-size molds insured a more precise spacing of the nodules.

On November 20, 1888, John F. Miller of the Buckeye Glass Company, Martin's Ferry, Ohio, patented a means for producing a rather attractive opalescent glassware. Their "New 528 Venetian Ware" was advertised in full-page illustrated advertisements in color in the various trade journals. It was produced in "crystal, canary, blue and rose opalescent" in a variety of table wares. Being blown in full-size molds it was cheaply manufactured and priced accordingly. Nevertheless, it was an attractive glassware and sold exceptionally well.

On February 14, 1889, Thomas Davidson, the enterprising son of the founder of George Davidson and Company, Ltd., the Teams Glass Works, Gateshead-on-Tyne, England, patented a process for producing pressed, shaded, opalescent glassware. Articles such as ornamental dishes, vases, jugs, tumblers, and so on, were made of clear glass at the base, gradually becoming more opaque towards the top. To a batch of, say 560 pounds of sand, 210 pounds of alkali, and 84 pounds of calcspar, and 35 pounds of arsenic. The proportions of these last three ingredients were variable. The articles were pressed and molded in the ordinary way, then allowed to cool slightly, and then reheated. The reheated portions of the articles struck an opalescent color of the shade of the body metal or opalescent white.

Source: Nineteenth Century Glass - It's Genesis and Development