The forms in use — for table wares — were very few in number, and all the establishments adopted the same shapes and decorations, being guided mainly by the home furnishings of their period. All through the Georgian times the same class of form obtained, and till well into the 19th century the only appreciable difference was in the elaboration of the several decora tive motives.
Toward the middle of the century there was an all-round advance in range and form, variety of patterning and elaboration of treatment, the more highly skilled branches of craftsmanship being encouraged to meet the tastes and fash ions of the time.
The dinner-table and sideboard needed ad ditional articles and the mantel-shelf and cabi net called for more choice ornaments. Cut glass furniture for the beautifying of the palaces of Eastern potentates was in demand; chairs, settees, tables, bedsteads and even balusters for the stairways had to be provided, as also elaborately constructed fountains and lamp stands. A pioneer example of this class is the glass fountain — made for the 1851 ex hibition — still to be seen in the Crystal Palace, London. The 1851 (London) and succeeding international exhibitions very materially as sisted the glass industry and many forms of production developed into large and continuous business from a single exhibition specimen. New departments of the industry about this time added largely to its wealth and importance. Hand and machine etching upon table-glass were introduced in the late fifties and early sixties, respectively; ornamental glass for table use and home decoration advanced enormously and brought with it extensive use for colored glass. Gas and coal-oil similarly benefited glass-making, without materially reducing the extent of candelabra and candlestick production.
Association with other industries—as the sil versmith— also brought much benefit to the glass interests. Sculpturing of glass, after the manner of the bas-relief marbles of ancient Greece, was introduced in the sixties. The first specimen was in clear flint-glass and its decora tive motif that of Greece in the 4th century B.C. Following this was the effort to revive an art not known to have been practised since Roman Empire times and believed to be of •Athenian origin. This endeavor was to reproduce the "Portland Vase" in its original material — glass. The effort was successful in every sense and resulted in opening the road to several new features in glass ornamentation.
In the late seventies a decorative motif akin to glass sculpturing resulted from efforts to reproduce, in glass, some of the ancient ex amples of carved rock crystal. This effort too was entirely successful and resulted in the es tablishment of another new branch of the industry. In the early eighties, enameling and gilding upon flint-glass was successfully re vived, as also was the intaglio style of cut-glass decoration, now sometimes called "stone-cut." The process of iridising the surface of glass has been practised in England since 1880. In that year its application to very deep shades of blue and green glass produced effects very closely resembling the antiques of Egypt and Rome. The same material and process, used upon a surface "crackled" in the 16th century Venetian manner, produced "Scarahmus glass.° The manufacturing of flint-glass in Ireland de clined about 1835.
JoRN A. Sawicz.