vase

Jules Barbe was a French gilder and enameler. He exhibited his work at the Paris world's fair of 1878, and a year later he went to Stourbridge. Barbe was employed at the Dennis Glass Works, where he introduced "raised" gilded decoration consisting of a paste made of gold, mercury, and other ingredients. This decoration was painted on the glass and fired in a muffle kiln fueled with oak wood. After the glass was annealed, the gilding was burnished with spun glass brushes. Barbe worked for the Webb firm until 1901, when he became a freelance decorator. Fridolin Kretschman, who carved this vase, is known to have lived in the Stourbridge area from 1886 to 1892.