Amberina Glass
Amberina Glass
It is highly probable that the production of parti-colored glass from a homogenous metal was known to the ancients for the phenomenon must certainly have occurred in the more than five thousand years of glass production which preceded the invention of Amberina art glass.
However, in Curiosities of Glass Making: With Details of the Processes and Productions of Ancient and Modern Orn
we find our first brief mention accorded to a parti-colored red and green glass composed of homogeneous stock. "Flint glass manufacturers," he wrote, "produce beautiful red from a mixture of copper and iron, and sometimes accidentally; for instance, when the ordinary metal mixed specially for light green medical bottles is nearly worked out, it will assume the complementary color - namely, a ruby red; so that the same bottle will be parti-colored red and green."
Such "accidents" occurred (and the metal would strike red in reheating) most often during the "fire polishing" process when mold marks were being removed from the mold-blown bottles by reheating. The pieces to which this happened were considered undesirable and ended up on the cullet heap.
Many glasshouse workers in England and America must have witnessed this phenomenon at some time or other, but the commercial aspects of this occupational nuisanace were not recognized until Joseph Locke applied it to the development of Amberina. The patent for Amberina was dated July 24, 1883, and was granted to Joseph Locke "assignor to W.L. Libbey, of Newton, and Edward D. Libbey, of Boston, Massachusetts."
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It was the first patented method for producing shaded and parti-colored glassware from a sensitive, homogeneous metal. A tiny amount of gold in solution was then spread out in a transparent amber-glass batch. Pieces that were formed from this were then cooled from a glowing red heat and parts were reheated at the glory hole. This rapid cooling and reheating struck a red color in the reheated portions, causing in the finished product a shading of amber to ruby red. The patent also provided for the development of a violet shade, and greenish, bluish and other tints through the controlled use of the caloric available to the glassworker by reheating articles through the small aperture of the glory hole, or the larger aperture of the castor hole.
This first patent for Amberina was followed by a series of similar patents issued either to Locke or to Edward D. Libbey. The next to appear was dated November 13, 1883, and covered Mr. Locke's method for producing a lamp globe of two different colors from the same homogeneous stock. It called for the globe to be formed from a sensitive amber glass, and for cooling and heating the globe unequally to develop darker colors where desired.
In an era of extravagant cut glass it is not surprising to find the New England Glass Company also manufacturing cut Amberina. An interesting method of producing blanks composed of sensitive Amberina glass was patented by Edward Libbey on July 29, 1884. The line drawings which accompanied his specifications illustrated a shallow dish which, after being suitably shaped in a mold, was reheated to produce a rather deep ruby color on its outer surface only. When the design was cut through the ruby color to the undeveloped amber color on the inner surface of the article it presented a rich and interesting object of art. A superb example of this technique exists in the collection of the Toledo Museum of Art.
In 1884, W. L. Libbey & Sons announced "Amberina at greatly reduced prices." This may have been prompted by C.F.A. Hinrich's advertisement in the Crockery & Glass Journal dated February 21, 1884, in which they offered the trade "Ruby Amber Glassware" at prices far below the cost of Libbey's Amberina. On November 12, 1885, Libbey reported that the strike at their factory was over and they were hard hit by the cheap copies of their beautiful shaded ware.
A patent issued to Edward D. Libbey, on June 15, 1886, for a plated glassware clearly explains the method used by the New England Glass Works to produce their "Plated Amberina." Hereby a piece of opal or opalescent glass, plated with a gold-ruby mixture, was reheated to develop a deeper color at portions which would blend into the lighter part of the glass, not sufficiently reheated to develop any color. When sensitive amber and gold-ruby metal (Amberina) was used, the result would appear in the Amberina shading; a sensitive cobalt and ruby glass mixture would produce a plated ware shading, a sensitive cobalt and ruby glass mixture would produce a plated ware shading from blue to ruby. The patent papers further stated that colored casings of canary, blue or green could be substituted effectively for the opalescent casing. While there is no mention of pattern molding to produce the ribbed effect on the surface of the glass - a characteristic of plated Amberina - this had no particular bearing on the specifications necessary for this patent.
The name "Amberina" was, according to the application for trademark papers dated April 4, 1884, in continuous use by W. L. Libbey & Son since December, 1882. Labels bearing the Amberina trade mark have been found on several pieces of Amberina, and plated Amberina too.
Amberina art glass was made at the Libbey Glass Company of Toledo, Ohio, around 1900, and discontinued after a few years. It was again revived - or at least an attempt was made to revive interest in it - around 1920. This was a very short-lived venture, and it seems only a small quantity was manufactured. This later Amberina, usually marked "Libbey" in script letters in the pontil of each article, is rich in color and most of the forms ae in excellent taste.
Source: Nineteenth Century Glass - It's Genesis and Development
