Cut Glass Mirror

The American brilliant cut glass tradition is perhaps nowhere better showcased than in the intricate art of Charles Guernsey Tuthill. Born in 1871 in Corning, New York, Tuthill entered the glass trade as a young apprentice, launching a career that would not only produce some of the finest cut glass in America but also innovate that art form in ways that adapted to the changing life of the new century. In this detailed narrative of the business Tuthill founded, the patterns he created, the techniques he used, and the other artisans and consumers he knew, Maurice Crofford has written the story of an earlier, more elegant and leisurely era. For those knowledgeable about cut glass, the development of the forms will be instructive; for others, who simply appreciate the beauty of the glass, the numerous black and white photographs will appeal. Beyond both of those dimensions, however, Crofford provides insight into how industrialization and mass production and, more especially, the automobile, changed forever the ways upper-class Americans lived, entertained, and displayed their good fortune. In Tuthill's career, moreover, Crofford finds an example of American ingenuity and creative genius that responded to changing times. The glass itself is of extraordinary beauty, and the descriptions here include the patterns, effects sought, and methods of hand production. Crofford details not only those patterns best known to aficionados of American cut glass of the Brilliant Period but also other patterns retrieved through exhaustive dogging of Tuthill's trail. Through the written records of Tuthill's succession of businesses and through interviews with surviving members of the Tuthill family,Crofford has reconstructed a remarkably detailed catalog of this master craftsman's work as well as an engaging story of his life and career.

This authoritative book presents new information about the late 19th- and early 20th-century cut glass industry in Corning, New York. The recent discovery of a mass of archival material relating to T. G. Hawkes and Company, including thousands of letters, has enabled the author to research business practices in the glass industry in more detail than ever before. Using this new information, together with her already considerable knowledge, Jane Shadel Spillman has produced the first book on American cut glass to go beyond the glass and examine the workings of the industry itself, including labor relations, sources of blanks, special orders for the White House, Hawkes's representation at the Paris world's fair in 1889, and communication between the cut glass industry and silver manufacturers such as Gorham and Tiffany. Competition and cooperation between the glass cutting firms are also highlighted, and considerable attention is paid to other companies, such as J. Hoare, H. P. Sinclaire, and O. F. Egginton.