Description
c1890 Mt Washington Burmese vase hand painted with rigaree. Absolutely perfect with no damage or restorations whatsoever, amazing piece 3" tall and wide.
MT. WASHINGTON AND PAIRPOINT GLASS
Mt. Washington and its successor, the Pairpoint Corporation, was one of
America’s longest-running luxury glass companies (1837-1957), one that rivaled
its better known contemporaries, Tiffany and Steuben. It constantly reinvented
and re-invigorated its business through creativity in texture, decoration,
pattern, and color - developing a variety of styles and decorating techniques
which were so technically complex that few are even practiced today.
The Mt. Washington Glass Company was founded in South Boston in 1837, and moved
to New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1870. In 1880, Thomas J. Pairpoint, an English
silversmith, was hired to run the Pairpoint Manufacturing Company, another
company in New Bedford which Mt. Washington’s owners established to produce
ornate silver-plated mounts for Mt. Washington glass.
In 1894, the Pairpoint Manufacturing Company absorbed Mt. Washington, and the
company was renamed the Pairpoint Corporation in 1900, which remained the
company’s name until it went out of business in 1938. It was revived briefly as
the Gundersen-Pairpoint Glass Company but closed permanently in 1957. The
company’s most successful years were from 1880 (in the height of the opulent
Gilded Age) to 1930 (the end of the exuberant Roaring Twenties).
MT. WASHINGTON ART GLASS AND CUT GLASS
Englishman Frederick Shirley was hired in 1872 to run Mt. Washington’s
chandelier department, and two years later was put in charge of the entire
company. Shirley was entrepreneurial and litigious, quick to adopt new designs
and quick to complain if he thought any other firm was copying his wares. By the
time he resigned in 1891, he had amassed a total of 27 patents and five design
patents for various types of glass, most of which were quite successful.
In 1885, Shirley introduced Burmese glass, a translucent glass that shaded from
yellow to pink, which was highly decorated in the elegant and sophisticated
style characteristic of the day. It became an immediate success on the Art Glass
market. Shirley was a good businessman and took advantage of the dawning age of
advertising to promote Burmese glass extensively.
Mt. Washington’s large decorating shop specialized in enameling. The decorators
who worked on Burmese glass also applied their skills to a variety of other
decorated glasses with exotic names like Royal Flemish, Crown Milano, Colonial,
and Pearl Satin Ware. By 1890, the company was advertising itself as
“Headquarters in America for Art Glass Wares.”
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