IAN SIMMONDS
Early American Glass
Recent blog posts
Publications
| From Objects to G Numbers via Index Cards: Helen McKearin’s Classification of Blown Three Mold Glass Ian Simmonds. The Glass Club Bulletin of The National American Glass Club. Number 212, Fall/Winter 2008, pp. 12-21. |
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| Manufactured between about 1815 and 1835, Blown Three Mold is one of the more distinctive products of early American glasshouses. (See this for further examples) This article explains how Helen McKearin went about classifying this glass, including the role of a box of index cards which, among other things, helps reveal some important likely errors. (Full article ...) | ||
| The Falling of the Chandelier in the House of Representatives, 1840. Found by Ian Simmonds. The Glass Club Bulletin of The National American Glass Club. Number 210, Spring 2008, pp. 10-11. |
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| The tragic tale of an enormous American-made cut glass chandelier that hung all-too-briefly in the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. A fine example of the stories waiting to be stumbled upon while digging through old newspapers. (Full article ...) |
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| [Ad for Lyons Hotel, Philadelphia, 1835-36]. Jane Spillman / Ian Simmonds. The Glass Club Bulletin of The National American Glass Club. Number 210, Spring 2008. |
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| A remarkable ad found in DeSilver's Philadelphia Directory & Stranger's Guide, 1835-6 illustrating a wide variety of glass that was most likely made in Philadelphia at about that time. (Full article ...) | ||
| More Puzzling: Larger Objects Patterned in Smaller Molds. Ian Simmonds. The Glass Club Bulletin of The National American Glass Club. Number 209, Autumn 2007. |
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| A discussion of how and why glass bubbles that had received both a pattern and form in full-sized, hinged, multi-part molds were subsequently expanded and reshaped to create objects of a larger size and different shape. Written as a response to a question in an earlier Bulletin about certain club-shaped decanters that had received their patterns in smaller barrel-shaped, hinged, multi-part molds. The article presents evidence from other Blown Three Mold objects and from period sources. (Full article ...) | ||
| Henry Clay’s Sherry Decanters Ian Simmonds. The Glass Club Bulletin of The National American Glass Club. Number 207, Spring 2007. |
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| The story of a previously unpublished pair of decanters presented to Henry Clay, one of 19th Century America’s greatest statesmen. The decanters feature extremely rare cut lettering including the letters “H.C.” This article attributes the decanters to the Sweeneys of Wheeling. The Sweeneys made similar glass with broad flute cutting and are known to have presented glass to Clay. The decanters are in the collection of Ashland, the Henry Clay Estate, in Lexington, Kentucky. (Full article ...) | ||
| Not Bakewell circa 1835, but Sandwich circa 1880 Ian Simmonds. The Glass Club Bulletin of The National American Glass Club. Number 201, Spring/Summer 2005, p. 19. | ||
| Published in the wake of the groundbreaking exhibition of Bakewell glass at the Frick Art and Historical Center in Pittsburgh early in 2005, this is a reminder that early 19th Century cut motifs were revived late in the 19th Century. The illustrated pitcher featuring “strawberry diamonds” is an example of the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company’s Fryer pattern. (Full article ...) | ||