The History of Glass

Henry William Stiegel arrived in Philadelphia around 1750, and within a decade became a very prosperous ironmaster. He built furnaces in Berks and Lancaster County, PA, and following a boycott of British glass, began producing the product himself. 

In 1768 he built a glassworks in Manheim, PA where he made utilitarian glass vessels, sometimes with enamel decoration. Less than ten years after his incredible success, tastes changed to prefer imported tableware and Stiegel's business collapsed.

In the 18th century, Irish glass makers combined techniques learned from Venetian glass artisans with a unique recipe involving calcinated flints and pebbles, and lead oxide as a flux. The result was a glass that, when cut, refracted more light than ever before. 

From 1780-1825, British tariffs were temporarily lifted and Irish manufacturers exported their glass in great quantities. Americans purchased the imported glass for its reputation and beauty, using it in parlors and dining rooms. 

  In the late 18th and early 19th century, American glass artisans sought opportunities to create products inspired by the popularity of Irish cut glass. By the 1820s, glass makers were experimenting with machine pressed glass as a cheaper way of emulating the look of cut glass.

Cheaply producing glass with a cut appearance made beautiful tableware available to middle-class citizens at a reasonable price.  One of the most successful factories in pioneering the pressed glass technique was the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company in Sandwich, MA.

By the mid 19th century and throughout the Victorian era, tastes changed from a preference for cut glass to colored and ornately decorated glass. Production became faster and cheaper with advances in machinery to meet the growing American population's demand for household goods.

These glasses, called "Christmas Lights" or "lanterns" were suspended and illuminated by a wick attached to a piece of wood that floated in oil atop water to decorate for Christmas and other celebrations.

In the mid 1890s, Louis Comfort Tiffany patented the process to manufacture 'favrile' (from the old French word for handmade) art glass, inspired by the Roman and Syrian iridescent glass he saw on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum during a trip to London years prior.

 In comparison to other iridescent glass, favrile color and iridescence is part of the glass itself rather than a coating.

Contemporary artist Dale Chihuly combines the art of glass blowing with large scale sculpture. Active since the 1960s, his most significant contributions to the discipline have been to emphasize the natural forces of heat, gravity, and centrifugal force in the creation of glass.

His art strikes a balance between conscious intention and chance occurrence.  While much of his work is inspired by the natural world, Chihuly seeks to emulate the process of nature, rather than nature itself.