Plate or Tray

ManufacturerPossibly Boston and Sandwich Glass Works (American, 1826-1888)

Place of OriginMassachusetts

Date1835-1840

DimensionsH: 4.7 cm (1 27/32 in.); Rim L: 29.8 cm (11 3/4 in.); Rim W: 21.1 cm (8 5/16 in.)

MediumColorless glass; pressed.

ClassificationGlass

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number

1962.12

Not on View

DescriptionPressed upside down over a plain male mold that formed the interior of the tray, the edge of the rim, and the holes in the chain links and handles, by a female plunger bearing all of the pattern, which appears on the exterior of the piece, with a cap ring that formed the stippled underside of the chain and handled rim and the plain vertical edge between the rim and the bottom of the tray. Broad ribbed foot ring.

Label TextIn 1829 Deming Jarves of the Boston & Sandwich Glass Co. patented a process of pressing a patterned mold onto a sheet of soft glass that then slumped into a mold of the desired shape. This eliminated the necessity of costly molds for each shape and pattern. By 1830 there were presses that made it possible to press an open handle as an integral part of a pitcher. Within just a few years, a glassmaker succeeded in pressing this remarkable tray with its pierced rim and openwork handles.Published ReferencesLee, Ruth Webb, Sandwich Glass: The History of the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company, 7th ed., Northboro, Mass., author, 1947, pp. 416-417, pl. 163.

Green, Charles W. "A Most Important Discovery at Sandwich," Antiques, vol. 32, August 1937, fig. 4.

"Recent and important acquisitions made by public and private collections in the U.S. and abroad," Journal of Glass Studies, vol. V, 1963, p. 153, no. 55, repr. p. 152.

Rogers, Millard F. "The Story of American Glass," Toledo Museum News, New Series, vol. 9, no. 3, Autumn 1966, pp. 51-55, repr. p. 60 (b&w) (also published as a handbook).

Labino, Dominick, Visual Art in Glass, Iowa, 1968, p. 74, 75, repr. fig. 56.

Art in Glass, A Guide to the Glass Collections, Toledo Museum of Art, 1969, repr. p.98.

Keefe, John W. "A comparison of the products of the New England and the Boston and Sandwich glass companies," The Glass Club Bulletin, no. 96/97, Dec. 1970-Mar. 71, p. 9, repr. fig. xi.

Keefe, John W., "American Lacy and Pressed Glass in the Toledo Museum of Art," Antiques, vol. 100, July 1971, pp. 104-109 (Reprint 2, pp. 151-156), p. 106, repr. fig. 5.

Wilson, Kenneth M., New England Glass and Glassmaking, Old Sturbridge Village Book, New York, Crowell, 1972, p. 275, fig. 237, right.

Newman, Harold, An Illustrated Dictionary of Glass, London, Thames and Hudson, 1977, p. 177, bottom.

Spillman, Jane S., American and European Pressed Glass in the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning Museum of Glass Catalog Series, Corning, N.Y., Corning Museum of Glass, 1981, p. 101, no. 300.

The Elsholz Collection of Early American Glass, 3 vols., Hyannis, Mass., Richard A. Bourne, 1987, vol. 1, no. 516.

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. 370, no. 497.

Page, Jutta-Annette, The Art of Glass: Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, Toledo Museum of Art, 2006, p. 149-150, repr. (col.) Fig. 63.3, p. 150.

Comparative ReferencesSee also McKearin, George S. and Helen McKearin, drawings by James L. McCreery, American Glass, New York, Crown, 1941; rev. ed., 1948, pp. 346, 359, pl. 154.

cf. Gaines, Edith, "The chain-border tray: three versions," Antiques, vol. 100, no.2, August 1971, pp. 256-57.

cf. Corning, New York, Corning Museum of Glass, The Story of American Pressed Glass of the Lacy Period, 1825-1850, 1954, p. 78, no. 142, pl. XXVI. (Exhibition)