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Extract from the May 2009 Magazine
April 2009 Magazine Pages 12-13 THE FORGOTTEN BEAUTY OF EDWARDIAN GLASS

by Charles Hajdamach
Because of its position between the Victorian age and the Roaring Twenties and Thirties, Edwardian glass is often underestimated as insignificant when compared to the achievements of those periods. Although it is obvious that many Victorian styles continued into the new century, it is also true that there was much innovation and to neglect the period prevents an appreciation of a fascinating era of glassmaking at a time when the British Empire was at its height.
Edwardian glass can be extremely restrained and subdued or as exuberant as anything from the 19th century, and, at its best, it offers the collector a wide array of surprises and delights. The range of glass was astonishing, much of it for export but also for a flourishing retail home market epitomised by the opening of large department stores such as Peter Jones in 1900 and Selfridges in 1909. At the cheaper end of the market the Manchester pressed glass firm of Joseph Kidd in 1906, advertised 'lemon squeezers, potting pots, brawn moulds, ice cream glasses and plates, piano insulators, insulators for electrical purposes, pavement light and other lenses, bird glasses' and a large variety of 'Penny Goods' which included 'match strikers, cats, dogs and swans'. In Birmingham the firm of Walsh Walsh boasted that they made glass for 'silversmiths, black iron and copper, electric light, gas and oil, table decoration, cut glass and artistic fancy glass'. The glass companies who catered for the social elite created endless variations in cut and engraved glass which reflected the elegant, sophisticated and witty hedonistic atmosphere presided over by the new king with its endless round of house parties, dinners and banquets centred around the glamorous events of 'The Season'.

May 2009 Magazine Page 14Figure5. Art Nouveau vases by Stevens and Williams with engraved, intaglio, moulded and applied decoration, c.1901-04. The centre vase, which bears a scratched number 6401903, is recorded in the stevens and williams pattern books at no.31280, dated to March 1903; a similar version is at pattern no.32287 'Pillarinta Vase Flint' and was intaglio decorated by Joshua Hodgetts and dated December 1903. Variations on this design continued into 1904. The applied seed forms on the left-hand vase are found in a number of variations in the firm's pattern books around 1901-02. The right-hand vase with the scallop top is pattern number 32646 dated to between January and March 1904. Hts. left to right: 8 7/8in., 12in., 12in.;

The accession of Edward VII to the throne in 1901 coincided with one of the great periods in British glass-making when some of the finest Art Nouveau glass came from James Powell and Sons at the Whitefriars glass works in London. For Edward's Coronation in 1902 the company created the most elegant and stylish 'souvenirs' ever produced. Harry Powell's decision to decorate the thinly blown vases with engraved representations of flowers whose names alluded to the king, i.e. the marsh marigold, also known as the kingcup, and the Corona imperialis lily, was a stroke of genius. The vases continue to exude the heady scent of Art Nouveau inhaled from the mainstream European movement (figure 2). The firm's dedication to the philosophy of 'truth to materials' combined with the strong influence of Venetian glass with its finesse and sensitive addition of ornament, suited the Art Nouveau style perfectly and reached perfection in the designs of Harry Powell in the first decade of the 20th century.
One series of vases seems to have been inspired by Emile Galle's cameo vases known as 'Verrerrie Parlanf, where he uses quotations from French poets including Verlaine and Gautier, but on the Whitefriars vases the texts were taken from the biblical verses of the Song of Solomon (figure 3). In his version of Venetian applied decoration Harry Powell designed a series of vases and bowls, known as the 'Glasses with Histories', which relied on applied trails or tears, prunts and bands of threading for their main decoration, many of them inspired by glasses he had spotted in paintings at the Rijksmuseum and other galleries on his travels around Europe (figure 1). Powell's designs at this time received fabulous success in Europe through exhibitions and examples acquired by major museums in Germany, Switzerland and Norway. Perhaps the highest single compliment for Harry Powell came in 1906 when a Member of the Italian Parliament, Count Lionel Hirschel de Minerbi, commissioned the firm to make a service of 465 pieces for his newly acquired palazzo, the Ca' Rezzonico on the Grand Canal in Venice. Using the most elegant application of 'Venetian' melted in and pulled up threads the resulting service must be the most audacious example of 'taking coals to Newcastle' in the history of glass (figure 1).