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New Books for Collectors
—
October 2006
The Collector’s
Encyclopedia of American Art Glass, 2nd edition
by John Shuman III,
Reviewed by Robert Reed
(Antique & Collectible News Service)
 |
The newly released Collector’s Encyclopedia of American Art Glass truly sparkles for readers. In this second edition author John Shuman III deftly points out that the term art glass is a “broad and very tolerant one” taking in vast arrays of glass techniques and colors.
Glassmakers were fabricating during the Victorian era and well into the Art Nouveau period according to Shuman, from around 1880 up until as late as the 1930s. He adds, “Their experimentation with decoration, techniques, and materials brought creativity in glass to its apex in the United States.”
Clearly chapters in American Art Glass are just as wide-ranging as the expansion of the glass itself. Sections include Pittsburgh stained glass windows, glass terminology, glass making tools, and principle glass-making agents. Elsewhere there are chapters on cut glass marks, milk glass, Vaseline glass and of course the legendary Tiffany stained glass.
“Tiffany layered his glass with several sheets,” according to the author, “giving greater color depth. Competitors were limited to glass stock, while his company selected from thousands of color glass sheets on hand. Flesh tones were even possible, created with glass overlays, not using paints or etching. The improvement over medieval glass was tremendous.”
Shuman follows up the chapter with scores of original Tiffany advertisements from the early 1900s. The vintage advertisements alone, which also extend in the book to other quality glass, make an excellent research resource.
In addition to the black and white advertisements there are hundreds of color illustrations in the volume. It also includes an index, from acid cutback to zinc sulphide, and extensive 30- page price guide.
The fine book was finally revised after 18 years. Newly added to the second edition are 15 more chapters and over 150 additional art glass images.
The Collector’s Encyclopedia of American Art Glass, 2nd
edition, by
John Shuman III, hardcover, color illustrated, value guide, 384 pages,
is $29.95 plus shipping from Collector Books, 1-800-626-5420.
Bejewelled By
Tiffany
Edited by Clare Philips
Reviewed by Robert Reed
(Antique & Collectible News Service)
 |
The legendary Tiffany and Company and its treasures are exquisitely presented in Bejewelled By Tiffany edited by a leading curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum in England.
This compelling volume carefully and commandingly covers the years of the Tiffany company’s founding in the 1830 through the 1980s. It is edited by Clare Philips curator in the department of sculpture, metalwork and ceramics.
Tiffany and company remarkably, as documented here, managed to keep moving forward with the times and the tastes of America and elsewhere. A great period of naturalism in jewelry was followed by the abstract geometry of Art Deco.
Ever at the forefront of design, Tiffany moved confidently in the 1930s and 1940s with large and glamorous colorful stones set in swirling gold. In the postwar 1950s, Tiffany boldly backed new designers, including French designer Jean Schlumberger. In the 1970s Tiffany turned to designers Elsa Peretti and Paloma Picasso.
Bejewelled By Tiffany coincides with an extensive exhibition of Tiffany jewelry at the Gilbert Collection in London, England through November of this year.
“The beguiling sound of the word Tiffany conjures up images of a light-hearted and immensely pleasurable world,” notes Lord Rothschild in the books forward. Rothschild is honorary president of the Gilbert Collection trust. “It stands for glamour, fine craftsmanship and lively design. To us on this side of the Atlantic it is also quintessentially American in character---as American as the Wild West or Frank Lloyd Wright.”
Tiffany’s flexibility reaffirms Rothschild, “allowed it to engage with new styles while responding to the changing moods of the American nation. It has an extraordinary ability to reinvent itself and yet remain true to its guiding principles of fine design and craftsmanship.”
Aiding editor Phillips’ fine efforts are jewelry historian and journalist Vivienne Becker, Newark Museum curator Ulysses Grant Dietz, Tiffany design director John Loring, jewelry historian Katherine Purcell, and Anthony and Lulu Wang with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Bejewelled By Tiffany edited by Clare Philips, hardcover, 300 color illustrations and 320 pages is $65 from Yale University Press.
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