Longfellow commemorative plate or tray

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Longfellow commemorative plate or tray

ManufacturerAttributed to New England Glass Company (American, 1818-1888)

Date1878-1882

DimensionsD rim 35.3 cm (13 29/32 in.); H 3.0 cm (2 3/16 in.)

MediumWhite opal glass; pressed and enamel painted

ClassificationGlass

Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1925.50

Not on View

DescriptionPressed upside down over a plain male mold, with a cap ring that formed the side and bottom of the basal ring on which the plate rests, by a plain female plunger. Upper surface enameled with a portrait of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow within a gilt oval set against a red background ornamented with a griffin and a floral spray on each side.

Label TextGlassmakers have always been attracted to the challenge of portraiture, and here the lifelike result achieved in painted enamels is striking. From the mid-1860s the reputation of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) was firmly established. By then he had published some of his best known works: Hiawatha, The Courtship of Miles Standish, Tales of a Wayside Inn, and his translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Artists, sculptors, and photographers sought him out. The image that the glass painter replicated was an 1878 photograph taken by George Kendall Warren. The framework reflects the Renaissance revival style fashionable in the 1860s and 1870s.Published ReferencesThe Toledo Museum of Art, Art in Glass: A Guide to the Glass Collections, Toledo, Ohio, 1969, repr. p. 110.

Keefe, John W., "A Comparison of the Products of the New England and the Boston and Sandwich Glass Companies," pt. 1, The Glass Club Bulletin of the National Early American Glass Club, nos. 96-97, December 1970-March 1971, pp. 3-12; pt. 2, The Glass Club Bulletin of the National Early American Glass Club, no. 98, August 1971, pp. 3-7, p. 5, repr. fig. 24.

Wilson, Kenneth M., American Glass, 1760-1930: The Toledo Museum of Art, New York: Hudson Hills Press in association with the Toledo Museum of Art, [Lanham, Md.]: National Book Network [distributor], c1994; 2 v. (879 p.): ill. (some col.); p. 600, no. 960, colorpl. 960, p. 574.

Page, Jutta-Annette, The Art of Glass: Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, Toledo Museum of Art, 2006, p. 140-141, repr. (col.) p. 141.

Exhibition HistoryThe Toledo Museum of Art, The New England Glass Company, 1818-1888, exh. cat., Toledo, Ohio, 1963, p. 78, no. 254.

The Toledo Museum of Art, Libbey Glass: Triumphs of the Factory, 1888-1920, exhibition, August 14-September 25, 1988 (no catalog).