Peach Blow Glassware

The publicity attendant on the sale of a Peach Blow porcelain vase for eighteen thousand dollars on March 8, 1886, precipitated the manufacture of glass and pottery reproduction of this ware. The vase, one of the thousands of art objects sold by the American Art Institute for the estate of Mrs. Mary Morgan, was reported to have once been in the collection of a Chinese mandarin named Wang Ye. The exquisite glaze was described in the Crockery and Glass Journal for March, 1886, as being the color of "crushed strawberries," a desirable hue for this kind of porcelain, but difficult to attain. The several accounts of the sale were amusing and at times confused, for while one reporter would state that the vase was sold to Mr. Walters of Baltimore, Maryland, another, supposedly quoting Mr. Walters, would deny the statement. Mr. Walters did buy Mrs. Morgan's Peach Blow vase, but because of the adverse publicity surrounding its purchase it was hidden away in a vault for more than fifty years before it was placed on exhibition in the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, Maryland.

Newspapers and magazines were quite critical of the bottle-shaped vase; their references to "the crazy Widow Morgan" and her "plug-ugly of ceramic art" were numerous. Nevertheless the word Peach Blow fell from the lips of thousands. B.D. Baldwin and Company of Chicago, Illinois, introduced a line of a beauty aids under the trade name "Peach Blow" and belles of the day were not in fashion unless their cheeks and lips were so tinted.

Three American manufacturers produced a glassware simulating the coloring of the Morgan Peach Blow vase. Hobbs, Brockunier and Company made what we consider to be the best facsimile of the vase by plating an opal glass body with a transparent amber glass made sensitive to caloric changes by colloidally dispersing gold salts throughout the melt. After plating the article with this sensitive skin of glass, the upper portion of the article was reheated at the glory hole and struck a ruby color at those parts. The finished product shaded from yellow in the base to a deep cherry red in the upper regions.

The Wheeling facsimiles of the Morgan Peach Blow vase sold exceptionally well according to sales reports for the year 1886. Other articles, decorative and utilitarian, were made of this same glass and these, too, were favorably received. Hobbs, Brockunier's advertisements of their "Coral, sometimes called Peach Blow," report that it was sold in the "Coral and Lustreless" finish. In 1887 it was reported that "other firms in the Wheeling area are working on this same ware" (Peach Blow glassware).

The manufacturing process employed in making Wheeling Peach Blow glass was a patented means belonging to the New England Glass Company.

From the pages of the Crockery and Glass Journal, November 25, 1886, we have this informative account of the wares made by the Wheeling works in their Coral glass: "At Hobbs, Brockunier and Co.'s trade is excellent. The demand for their lusterless coral, known to the trade as peach-blow, is beyond expectation, and keeps up remarkably well. This firm is now making tasty holiday goods. Pears, peaches, and other fruits in coral, richly tinted, look natural enough to eat." The fruit pieces are rare in this ware.

Between 1908 and 1930 Fred Carder of Corning produced a Peach Blow glassware very similar in color to the Hobbs, Brockunier's Coral. Mr. Carder plated a translucent alabaster glass with gold-ruby metal and reheated the whole object to produce a beautiful cherry-red coloring over the entire outer casing. The articles made by Carder are sometimes marked "Steuben" in the pontil.

The term "Peach Blow" was positive magic. Applied to the right merchandise it could have sold anything. Frederick S. Shirley of the Mt. Washington Glass Company filed trade-name papers on the term "Peach Blow" and "Peach Skin" securing exclusive use of the appelations, as applied to glassware, for the New Bedford Works on July 20, 1886.

The Mt. Washington Peach Blow wares were manufactured in forms and shapes that were also used for their Burmese glassware. Pattern-molding, applied glass decoration, and gold and enamels created interesting and beautiful designs on articles for table and decorative use. The subtle coloring of this glassware was not appreciated in its day which accounts for its being in scant evidence now.

One of the products resulting through experimentation was patterned by Edward D. Libbey on March 2, 1886. It was advertised and sold under the name "Wild Rose."

Mr. Libbey's Wild Rose was produced by combining an opal glass amid a gold-ruby glass in one pot. The sensitive glass mixture thus formed was reheated to produce color in the reheated portions of the article. The result was a translucent shaded rose to white homogeneous glassware of great beauty. The factory mane for this ware was "Peach Blow."

Articles of Wild Rose glassware were pattern molded, decorated with gilt and enamel designs and also acidized to a lovely satin finish. Sometimes pieces were left in their original glossy state.

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