Agata

On May 8, 1886, a Chinese porcelain vessel owned by Mrs. Mary J. Morgan caused a sensation when it sold at auction to William T. Walters of Baltimore for $18,000 (more than $450,000 today). The early 18th-century vase, now in The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, was described in a New York Times article as “peach blow or crushed strawberry color” and “of graceful ovoid shape with slender neck.” Almost immediately, American glass companies introduced competing facsimiles of the Morgan Vase, blown in various heatsensitive glasses that evoked the famous coloration. The Museum’s collection contains two other versions of the vase, an iconic Amberina version with a pressed glass stand made by Hobbs, Brockunier and Company (50.4.328) and a rare opaque white and enameled example created by the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company (2003.4.28). Seen together, the variations demonstrate the industry-wide response to consumer demand. The New England Glass Company employed the innovative English artist Joseph Locke (1846–1936), who had introduced color formulas such as Amberina, Pomona, Maize, and Wild Rose. He patented Agata shortly after the sale of the Morgan Vase, on January 18, 1887 (U.S. patent no. 356,409). Agata was a variation of Wild Rose. Metallic stains were added to the surface of Wild Rose glass and further manipulated by splattering the surface with a volatile liquid (such as alcohol, benzene, or naphtha) to form irregular pools and veining as it evaporated. This simulated the appearance of the porcelain vase more than any other heat-shaded glass formula. Production of Agata lasted barely a year, and surviving examples are rare. This imitation of the Morgan Vase is one of just two or three known examples executed in Agata. Unsigned. Unpublished. For more information about the Morgan Vase, see “Mrs. Morgan’s Treasures,” New York Times, February 11, 1886; and “Mr. Walters’s Peachblow Vase: Certainly to Ornament His Collection—No Doubt That He Is the Owner,” New York Times, March 12, 1886. For more about Agata, see Jutta-Annette Page and others, The Art of Glass: Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio: the museum in association with D. Giles, 2006, pp. 160–161, no. 68. For more about American Art Glass in general, see Doreen Bolger Burke and others, In Pursuit of Beauty: Americans and the Aesthetic Movement, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986.

United States, MA, East Cambridge

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