- Museum number
- 1878,0413.19
- Description
-
`Plate, with Gold inside of Glass, coated with glass, coated with Platinum, and coated again with glass', here gold and platinum are embedded between separate layers of blue glass, comprising five layers in all, but even so, very thin; label on the base.
- Production date
- 1878 (made)
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 12.10 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- See also 1878,0413.1-25
Text from J. Rudoe, 'Decorative Arts 1850-1950. A catalogue of the British Museum collection', 2nd. ed. 1994. no. 65:
The first record of D'Humy in England occurs on 31 October 1876, when he took out patent number 4217 for ornamenting glass with gold leaf or other metal. But he was not necessarily living in London before 1878, when he presented his glass to the British Museum from Litchfield Street; he took out a second patent in the same year, but is not listed in the London Post Office Directories until 1881, when he appears not as 'Aurora Glass Company' as in the British Museum records, but as 'Vasa Murrhina Glass Company'. The Directories give the Litchfield Street address as well as a gallery at 294 Regent Street and, significantly, a manufactory in York Place, York Road, Battersea. By 1882 D'Humy had opened another office at 5 and 6 Great Winchester Street, EC, but by 1883 only the address of the manufactory is given, suggesting that the Regent Street Gallery had closed, and by 1884 D'Humy is no longer listed at all. He took out one further patent in 1888 (Patent Abridgements, Glass, 31 March, no. 4878), for ornamenting lamp globes with wire-threaded beads.
In relation to developments in England it is interesting to note that Powell & Sons, Whitefriars Glass Works, were experimenting at precisely this time with similar methods of decoration. In his 'Notes of a Flint-Glass Works Manager' (Journal of the Society of Glass Technology, 1916, 241), H. J. Powell records decorating glass by 'marvering on gold or platinum leaf between 1877 and 1879. A much later development was that of Northwood's 'Silveria' glass produced by Stevens & Williams in Stourbridge at the turn of the century. This involved sandwiching silver foil between two layers of clear or coloured glass; the primary bulb was blown almost to full size before the foil was picked up from the marver, and it was then coated by dipping it into a pot of molten glass (Revi 1967, 215).
The process patented by D'Humy differed in that the primary bulb was not blown to full size before picking up the foil from the marver; consequently, when the bulb was expanded to full size the foil tore apart, giving a patchy effect. This explains why the encrustation is denser on the smaller pieces, which required less blowing. According to D'Humy's 1876 patent (Patent Abridgements, Glass, 31 October, no. 4217), a glass cylinder was covered with gold leaf and heated until the gold and glass had united. The coated cylinder was then passed into a larger but closely fitting glass cylinder left open at one end. The two cylinders were then united by heat and elongated to part the metal into strips, after which the glass was blown to the required shape. Revi (1967, 215-17) records a later patent of 13 February 1878, which varies slightly: 'a bulb covered with sheet or powdered metal is blown inside another bulb and has in turn a third bulb blown inside it. The whole is then fused together and finished as usual. Metal leaf may be attached to the inner or outer surfaces of articles by simply heating, or by means of enamel.' (Patent Abridgements, Glass, 13 February 1878, no. 600). Many modifications and special devices are mentioned, including the forming of patterns by splitting metal surfaces by enlarging the article (see items 59 and 61), and the blowing of glass into a wire network (item 75). (The patent references were kindly supplied by Charles Hajdamach.)
A similar process of applying a layer of gold between two layers of glass was patented in England on 29 November 1878 by Messrs Monot, Pere & Fils, & Stumpf, of Paris: a mixture of copper and gold was sandwiched between the glass to produce an effect known as 'Chine'; this technique was shown at the Paris Exhibition of 1878 (Revi, A.C. 'Nineteenth Century Glass', New York 1967, 217; see also Gazette des Beaux-Arts 18,1878, 2e periode, 198, of Monot & Stumpf: 'Leurs chines or craquele sont une creation, une de ces inventions tant a la mode qui de'guisent absolument la matiere employee'). A notice in the Furniture Gazette for 3 January 1880, announcing 'A Novelty in Decorative Glass' and describing D'Humy's invention, refers to examples of the technique at the Paris Exhibition of 1878 and states that it was now manufactured in England by the Aurora Glass Company. This suggests that D'Humy's process was developed in France, and 'The Art Journal'.account notes that he engaged glass blowers from the Continent, but further research is required to ascertain D'Humy's origins and early career.
From 1879 D'Humy was promoting his glass as 'reproductions of the Murrhine vases of the ancients' (Art Journal, 1879, 253). D'Humy is here alluding to the' vasa murrhina' mentioned by many ancient authors. According to Pliny 'myrrhina' were hardstone vessels made of carved fluorspar, introduced by Pompey in 62-61BC and highly prized for their glistening veins of purple and white (Natural History, xxxvn, VII-VIII, 18-22). However, Pliny also refers to the manufacture of glass to imitate murrhine vessels (Natural History, xxxvi, LXVII, 198). Pliny's imitation murrhine was no doubt one of the several types of Roman millefiori or mosaic glass of the first century BC to the first century AD formed of bands of different colours (see Corning 1987, Corning Museum of Glass, 'Glass of the Caesars', Milan, no. 16). However, D'Humy's encrusted glass is closer in technique to a different type of banded glass, known as gold-band or gold-sandwich glass (Corning 1987, nos 17-18). In these examples dark blue, green, yellow-brown and white bands alternate with clear glass bands encasing gold foil. Examples of both types of Roman glass are to be found in the Slade Collection, bequeathed to the British Museum in 1868. D'Humy would certainly have known the Slade pieces, the best of which were illustrated in colour lithographs in Nesbitt's catalogue of 1871. Colour plate 3 illustrates a remarkably fine alabastron with bands of emerald green and dark blue containing a central white thread, separated by a band of powdered gold within clear glass (Nesbitt, A., 'Catalogue of the Collection of Glass formed by Felix Slade, Esq. FSA', no. 75), while colour plate 2 shows an ampulla or perfume bottle of similar colours with bands of gold foil embedded in clear glass (Nesbitt, no. 76).
Pliny's murrhine vessels were not identified securely as fluorspar until the middle of the present century (see Harden, D. and Loewenthal, A.I., 'Vasa Murrina', Journal of Roman Studies, XXXIX, 1949, 31-7, and Bromhead, C.N., 'What was Murrhine?', Antiquity XXVI, June 1952, 65-70 ). In the late nineteenth century the word 'murrhine' was used indiscriminately to denote all mosaic and millefiori coloured glass made in imitation of semi-precious stones, whether or not it contained gold inclusions. It is still so used today (e.g. Vicenza 1982, Museo Civico di Palazzo Chierati, 'Antonio Salviati e la rinascimenta ottocentesca del vetro artistico veneziano', R. Barovier Mentasti, 64). Roman mosaic and millefiori glassware was copied by Salviati of Venice, who showed 'murrhine' glass vessels at the Paris Exhibition of 1878. Thus when D'Humy changed the name of his company to the Vasa Murrhina Company, he may have done so in direct rivalry to Salviati, whose retail outlet in London had moved by 1882 from St James's to 311A Regent Street, a few doors from D'Humy's gallery at number 294. The possibility that D'Humy employed Italian glass blowers must also be considered; the small liqueur cup with gold stripes is very close to contemporary Venetian models.
The cagework bottle was also inspired by Roman models; it is a combination of two different types, one of which has a direct prototype in the Slade Collection which D'Humy could well have known. It is a cobalt-blue beaker blown into a silver cage, though the cage is formed of sheet silver which has been pierced, rather than of woven wire (London 1968, British Museum, 'Masterpieces of Glass', ed. H. Tait.no. 74; Corning 1987, no. 78). The second Roman type is a common mould-blown vase of the third or fourth century AD, where the lower body is covered with a honeycomb pattern of raised bosses resembling a bunch of grapes (e.g. Klein, D. and Lloyd, W. eds., 'The History of Glass', London 1984, 37).
In 'The Art Journal'.account the Regent Street gallery was praised for its display of 'these beautiful objects, principally of an artistic character'. The Pottery Gazette was more cautious in its acclaim, criticising the lack of attention to form, which was 'the more to be regretted seeing that the invention itself is one that deserves all the care that can be bestowed upon it'. The wirework vessels were considered so simple and graceless that 'we were sorry to find M. D'Humy taking special pride in them, and voting their production something beyond the ken of ordinary mortals .. .they reminded us of nothing more aesthetic than the wire-cased bottles in which seltzer and other mineral waters are sold' (1 April 1880, 208, reference supplied by Charles Hajdamach). As a trade journal the Pottery Gazette was also concerned about the high prices; a comparatively small goblet cost thirty shillings. They predicted that it was too expensive to be commercially successful, a prediction confirmed by D'Humy's disappearance soon after from the London trade directory.
Nevertheless, pieces appear to have been highly regarded at the time. An encrusted gold goblet identical in technique and effect to the tall champagne glass has recently been acquired by Broadfield House Glass Museum, Kingswinford. It is so close that its attribution to D'Humy is without doubt. The bowl only is of glass and is mounted in a silver-gilt stem and foot, bearing the maker's mark of Thomas Johnson (see Decorative Arts 1850-1950 Cat. 82) and the London date-letter for 1879 (I am grateful to John Smith, who first drew this goblet to my attention; he and Charles Hajdamach have made helpful comments on the techniques of manufacture).
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1878
- Acquisition notes
- Presented by D'Humy on 3.4.1878; in the British Museum's acquisition register he is described as Managing Director of Aurora Glass Company Ltd.
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1878,0413.19