decanter

This set consists of a colorless glass decanter with matching stopper and six matching wineglasses. The components were all decorated with silver stain and then engraved with a floral motif featuring roses and grapevines. The wineglasses and the decanter also feature the letter “H,” engraved within a silver-stained oval and surrounded by an engraved floral wreath. The set is attributed to the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company, from which the Museum holds many examples of pressed glass but few blown, stained, and engraved objects. The elegant shape of the decanter, with its ovoid body, domed foot, and tall and slender neck, is very similar to that of a set of decanters made by Christian Dorflinger’s Brooklyn, New York, firm, Greenpoint Glass Works, for the Lincoln White House in 1861. The lighter style represents a departure from the heavily cut, squat globular or tall and narrow forms that were popular in the first half of the 19th century. Like the Lincoln service, this set reflects the height of fashion for glass tableware at the time. The decanter and wineglasses were likely a special order because of the additional labor and expense of the silver staining and engraving. Customers placed orders through a retailer, usually a jewelry store, and could specify the pattern and monogram or initial. Like today, personalized items were often purchased as gifts for occasions such as weddings or christenings, or to honor prominent citizens. While we do not know for whom the “H” initial was meant, the choice of a grapevine motif was very common for glassware for serving and drinking wine. Inscribed: “H” initial, engraved. Unpublished. For more information about Boston and Sandwich stained and engraved glass, see Raymond E. Barlow and Joan E. Kaiser, The Glass Industry in Sandwich, Windham, New Hampshire: Barlow-Kaiser Pub. Co., 1983–1999, v. 5, p. 50. For information about the Lincoln decanters, see Jane Shadel Spillman, White House Glassware: Two Centuries of Presidential Entertaining, Washington, D.C.: White House Historical Association in cooperation with the National Geographic Society and The Corning Museum of Glass, 1989, pp. 67–95.