PRESSED GLASS WITH RAINDROP PATTERN WINDOWS

PRESSED GLASS WITH RAINDROP PATTERN WINDOWS

Unfortunately there just aren’t that many things I can photograph through the windows and it is dependent upon the rain hitting the window just right. That got me to thinking that it might be fun to photograph other things using the raindrops on plastic/glass.

The photo on the right is a fence post taken through my front window after the rainstorm. I had a very limited subject selection from my front window.

As things began to clear a bit I decided to try some art photography using the raindrops as a focal point with the subject blurred in the background. I had my camera setup so I could photograph birds out of my front window but wasn’t able to do so because of the heavy rain pounding against the window. I have purposely not touched on 'hobnail' bowls, for instance as these could be the subject for an entirely new article.This past week we had some really heavy rains. It is by no means meant to be comprehensive as this was an immensely popular theme and made in many shapes and colors. Well, I hope this little tour of dot embellished rose bowls has given you a basic understanding of this decorative form. This is likely from the Italian maker Barovier and made in the 1950s. In the top bowl, captured controlled size bubbles of air between two layers of glass also give a dot effect. On the right is another imported 'thousand eyes' - this one ground through the ruby exterior to the clear interior. Wright made similar bowls but in their classic wafer footed style. These are formed with reverse thumbprints in the threaded glass ground - yielding an interesting dot effect which was called 'raindrop'.įinally, in Figure 6, on the left is another Japanese cranberry bowl in a large thumbprint motif. Next, in Figure 5, are two antique bowls from that venerable English glass house - Stevens & Williams. Both Fenton and Jefferson did make bowls similar to the one at the top which I believe were called 'Coinspot'. A good tip off to their origin is their ground smooth bottoms. It is believed that all three of these bowls are late models - possibly made in Japan. The third bowl in this picture is a more conventionally formed thumbprint in white opalescent.

That is why they are often called 'thousand eyes'. Because these little ground windows or optic eyes are concave, when you look into them, you see many small images of the spots on the other side. These bowls, one cobalt and one cranberry, started life completely cased in white - which was then ground away in a slightly concave manner (thumbprint) until it was through to the inner colored glass. This pattern I believe is circa 1955.Īt the bottom of Figure 4 are two bowls made in an entirely different way. The bowl in Figure 3 is Fenton's 'Polka Dot', characterized by staggered rows of spots and a band of white opalescence around the crimps. (An interesting sidelight is that the owner of Intaglio had earlier been a partner in Levay which had a business relationship with Fenton). As far as I can determine - it does not have a specific name. The bowl at the top of Figure 2 is from Intaglio Glass Co. To the left, with the staggered dots not coming up as close to the top - we have Fentons 'Coin Dot'. Wrights 'Honeycomb' in satin finish opalescent cranberryĪt the bottom of Figure 2, we have somewhat similar bowls by Fenton and Wright. At a later date, the Ruby Overlay color on the right was introduced - the pattern then seems to be called 'Fine Dot'. I believe the Jamestown Blue Transparent bowl on the left was made first (1957-59) and the pattern was called 'Polka Dot Optic'. The lower two bowls in Figure 1, for instance, are in Fentons version of a 'baby' thumbprint. Of course, in modern times, manufacturers liked to give their thumbprint type glass specific pattern names to differentiate from the competition. (I find it easier to feel the inside of a rose bowl to feel which way the prints go as the outside is often flattened by the mold surface.) Thumbprints were then arranged in rows to form a more intricate overall pattern. Following that, perhaps, came the reverse thumbprint where the imprint would be made from the inside - thus producing a 'bump' on the outside surface. In the beginning, dating to Victorian times, would have been what we call the thumbprint - pressed into the glass object as if pushed in by the thumb from the outside. I thought an article exploring the variations of this technique and showing some examples with proper identification would be of interest. One of the more common decorations seen in glass rose bowls are those round spots or dots that we all love.

Pressed glass with raindrop pattern