Old New England Glassware in the Home - Part Nineteen - "Delightful"

Old New England Glassware in the Home

Part Nineteen

"Delightful"

            It’s not just in the cupboard bottoms;

            The glassware

            In the old New England home

            Is everywhere.

            Let us just look around a bit more

            For just a minute.

            “DOWN cellar” are the

            Old Fruit Jars.

            They (the early design ‘old fruit jars’) are not a ‘utility’ glassware brought INTO the home.  They are a utility glassware IN the home.  They are not pressed glass.  They are, usually, ‘bottle glass’ (utilitarian glass metal) ‘aqua’ (color).  They are ‘mold blown’ glass almost exclusively.  They are ‘hand finished’ when ‘removed’ from their mold.  Many of the older ones have ‘ground lips’ or even ‘fire polished’ lips ... with this ‘that’ found on, especially, the ‘early’ ‘wax sealers’.  Napoleon, Josephine’s husband, is credited with ...creating the ‘Fruit Jar’; the “Preserve Jar”.  He... offered a substantial cash reward for a ‘food preservation method’ for transporting food to feed his army and

            Someone did... innovate... the design form called, casually, ‘the fruit jar’.   They are ‘down cellar’ ...old New England... glassware... in the home.  They are... ‘Empire Style’... in their ‘early (design) form’.  Too.

            I am not writing about them... even though they were... and are... THERE.

            THEY (fruit jars) ARE old New England GLASSWARE... in the home.  But they are too easy for you to understand ...now... with your ever-more discernment.  So I will skip along.  But:

 I will notice... that should one... be of the... properly decorating the ‘their’ old New England home...; that ‘doing that’ ‘down cellar’ ‘right’... would actively include proper (historically correct) ‘fruit jar’ (‘preserve jar’) (‘canning jar’) decorative etiquette.  Yes and that... done right makes one look... very bright... but ...done wrong... it is a decorative

            Fright.

            “I did not”, you say, decoratively include the cellar of the old New England “MY” home?  Well... THEY DID (the original occupying families).  If you don’t know what your doing; study... it (the fruit jar)... or consult a professional (fruit jar collector/dealer).

Should one seek to know a ‘fruit jar’ in the old New England home... by a name brand... that is also.... highly affordable (‘cheap’ in the current antiquarian marketplace).... (in ‘aqua’)... and a ‘classic’, follow the “Trademark” “Lighting” ‘jars’ trail.  These are old New England Home cellar classics.  They are forever ‘right’ although ‘too common’ to excite the knowing collector’s eye.  Many old Lighting jars are embossed with the word “Putnam” on their bottom.  This ‘furthers’ their old New England aura.  Do not worry.  Although not ‘valuable’ for the most part, there is a bevy of nuance ‘of  Lightings’ that “PEOPLE” (collectors) know and care about.

Example?  A DECEPTIVE nuance is the so called ‘cornflower blue’ ‘colored’ Lighting jar; a jar whose glass color is a distinctive but LIGHT ‘blue’.  Some funk such as I in an old cellar with... very... slight of hand will separate ALL jars of that color without the ‘anyone knowing’ (taking notice).  And it is a ‘”NEAT!” color to ‘know about’.  Too.... this corn flower

Blue.

The collector-‘adds value’ nuances ‘go from there’.  “Good luck with that”.

            Why not dwell... in old fruit jar Hell?  Because:  It is too boring (easy) as a design form to... get a gist of.  I am not entertained ‘of art’ by the fruit jar nuances.  I like a raw... ‘few travel there’ old New England glassware... object (“THING”)... that I find... in the old.... New England home.

            So... “Oh Victorians!” and Civil War era domestic décor.  Or is it better antebellum.  Yes it is better ‘that word’.  Why?  Well... the Civil War is responsible for changing the way “THINGS” in the “HOME” were “MADE”.  Coming TO the Civil War the influence and impact of industrial ‘practice’ retained the human (usually a ‘man’) as the controlling craftsperson... guiding and using the ‘machine’.  Glassware ‘pressed’ was ‘hands on’ managed by ‘old school’ glass craftsmen who... ‘knew what they were doing’ with the glass metal from ‘the old days’... and the ‘old ways’.  The machine of the Civil War... ‘got rid of that’.  The machine became a perfect craftsperson... so required... no longer... a human crafts person.  Just a person... to ‘work’ the ‘machine’.  Yes and going from Empire style to Victorian style... through the ‘transitional’ style... included ‘this’; the machine craft replacing the human craft... in the ‘manufacture’ ‘of’... ‘it all’.  Therefore:  When I look for signs

            Of design

            Decadence...

            With this ‘change’ (“decline”) in mind

            I know where to start... do I not.

            But I also spy that little antebellum window of ‘still there at work’ ‘a craftsperson’ ‘making’ some... thing.  Here I carry my eye-spy to glassware in the New England home and... peer around these old estates seeking that; old glassware that “I CARE ABOUT” and find some ‘peculiar’ that turns to ‘enthralling’ with that progressing to ‘absorbing’ to that carrying me off to ‘delightful’... ‘things’.  What could a ‘that sort of thing’ BE?  An Empire-Transitional-Victorian style antebellum glassware (handmade of old New England by an old New England ‘glass man’ of apex skill...?  IS THERE SUCH a domestic vanity... right in plain sight like today’s ‘television’.  But if so what could a THAT be?”

            Dancing past the ‘it must be for FORTY years I’ve LOVED THEM’ I rediscover FOR YOU the...

            Victorian... fish... bowl

            “I just oh

            Do love them

            So.”

            The old ones of course... from ‘before’ they were ‘machine made’.  I mean those large (9” by 10”) free blown clear glass bubbles of hand craftsman’s hand blown GLOBES of sphere space in GLASS... WARE sitting THERE with a ‘gold fish’ in  it.  “OH SO FRONT PARLOR... does it’s water need to be changed?”  I just...  I mean... once one finds one and, like... “KNOWS YOU CAN” find one and DOES... find one “IT’S NOT BROKEN”.  Usually they are empty and... ‘sort of’ put away.  Like... they are not on a (pillar style) stand anymore but only ‘tucked’ in the behind-the-chair-over-there-corner-of-room-by-the-desk-like... a trash basket sort of... whole and holy NOT ‘disturbed’ and no fish bones in it either.  I just run off with it to the truck.  I mean obviously I’d already spied it in the ‘walk through’ prior to ‘purchase’. And I don’t have to touch them.  Just my eyes:  The open top... rim... that is a ‘folded rim’ with that meaning the hot glass edge is folded over to create a sealed hollow space rim edge.  Then there is the rough glass pontil on the bottom... created there so that ‘a boy’ could hold the fish bowl while “HE” (master glassblower craft person) finished the rim; rolled the rim edge.  THEN THERE IS one hundred fifty years of ‘bottom wear’; a halo-around-the-moon (pontil) surface scratching to the bottom from ...’actual usage’.  THAT MUST BE THERE for a ‘real one’; a REAL OLD FISH BOWL.  Little usage scrapes and stains all over ‘it’ TOO.  THIS (a true antique fish bowl) WAS USED to hold the family’s GOLD.... FISH.  They (these old fish bowls) ARE old New England glassware... in the home.

            Most were made in the Boston area... by very skilled craftsmen having their job ‘taken over’ by a machine.  Due to the ‘blown big bubble’ scale of the fish bowl this... (glassware) ‘THING’ was harder to ‘get a machine to do’ so... since there WAS (and still is) a commercial demand for ‘a...fish...bowl’ ‘in the home’... these old veteran glass blowers ‘made them’.  SO FINE are they ‘of production quality’... that after (1) hearing about them from me and then (2) actually handling a REAL ONE...

            YOU WILL

            WANT ONE

            For... (yes you will)

            The (your)

            “Old New England Home”.

            Once discovered... they are delightful.

            Yes... you may put a fish in it.

            That does... make them hard to “I LOVE IT”

            Allow admiring to ‘handle it’.   But...

            Well...

            I, myself, prefer the ‘their sculptural presence’

            Now... I serve notice... that the observed craftsmen glass qualities of ‘folded rim – pontil – usage wear; these physical occurrence on this glassware; the old New England fish bowl... are retained ‘of mind’ and intensely used when one ‘suffers the  discernments’ of what makes EAPG (early American Pressed glass) a ‘delightful’ of

            Old New England glassware in the home. 

This notice includes the captured ‘little antebellum window’ of (in) time, too.