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VICTORIAN DECANTERS

The start of the Victorian era saw the removal of the Excise tax on glass, where glass was taxed by its weigth at the mouth of the furnace. This tax had the effect of making heavy glass more expensive and consequently glass produced before 1845 tended to be thinner and less heavily cut. Cutting glass was effectively cutting away glass that had already had tax paid on it. Free from the constraints of the glass tax, initially the glass industry went into overdrive producing heavy glass with deep cutting.

In a push back against what was seen as the artificiality of heavy cut glass, art movements such as Arts & Crafts, Aesthetic and Art Noveau went completely the other way, eschewing cutting for thinly blown glass where form was all. For decanters the Victorian era if one of extremes and innovation with heavy cut glass and thinly blown and trailed glass. To assit with identification, I have created a separate section in the website for the glass from these art movements.

In the traditional world of glass collecting, decanters are all pre-1830, and Victorian is seen as vulgar. Look through what I have included here and decide for yourselves. If you are looking for a decanter to use at home, there are bargains to be had in the Victorian era, and the balance of quality, practicality and cost, is definitely on the buyers side.

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Decanters

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Description, References and Size

This is a shaft and globe shaped decanter, in uranium green. The body is cut with geometric shapes with enclosing printies, panel cut shoulders and the neck has a single applied ring at the base and is slice cut along its length. The stopper is a blown ball, that is vertically slice cut, with a flat cut top. Probably made in the 1840s or 50s.

Shaft and globe or onion shaped decanters were resurrected as a form from the mid-18th century in the Victorian period and most people now consider this to be a typical shape for the Victorian period. This shape of decanter is not that practical to use. Although they can be wide and use plenty of table space the rounded bottoms may them slightly less stable than flat bottomed decantners. Further the necks are long and narrow in comparison to the body making them difficult to clean all the way out to the sides.

This colour is known as uranium green as it is actually made by adding uranium minerals to the glass in the furnace. Bright yellow and green uranium glass will glow in ultraviolet light, but are not particularly radio active.

Reference: The Decanter, Andy McConnell, page 314

Height: 12 inches

Width: 4.75 inches

This is a shaft and globe shaped decanter, in apple green. The upper body is panel cut and this rolls up shoulder to the top of the neck. The neck has three rows of triple grooves cut into it. The stopper is a solid faceted ball. Probably made 1890-1900.

This decanter is theoretically same shape and a similar colour to the one above, but made at the other end of the Victorian period. This shows the development of the glass from something heavy to something more delicate even though by dimensions this is a shorter squatter decanter.

Reference: The Decanter, Andy McConnell, page 423

Height: 11 inches

Width: 5.75 inches

This is a shaft and globe shaped decanter, with a blown ovoid stopper. It has no cutting and some simple leaf type motifs engraved on the body. Probably late 19th Century.

In terms of buying antique decanters, this one is pretty close to the bottom of the pile, being thinly and crudely made for the lowest expense. The marks you can see on the neck are not engraving but from faults during manufacture, and the cloudiness in the stopper is another manufacturing fault. The step in shape near the base that gives an impression of a foot is there to allow a gadget to grip the bottom of the decanter in manufacture and thus avoid the need to use a pontil that adds to the manufacturing process. There is no cutting and polishing involved in the making of this decanter.

Whilst I have been fairly derogatory about the qualities of this decanter, to me it still has historic value. As crudely made as this is, someone felt the need or compulsion to have some form of decanter on their table in order to make their place a home. Considering how thinly made it is, it is a survivor of probably 10s of not 100s of thousands that have long since bitten the dust and you don't actually see many like this.

A gadget is the technical term used by glass makers to describe devices used to grip the bottom of glasses and decanters to obviate the need to use a pontil.

Reference: The Decanter, Andy McConnell, page 378

Height: 12 inches

Width: 5 inches

This is a shaft and globe shaped decanter. The body is cut with one row of oval printies. The stopper is a blown ovoid with a single row of printies. Made late 1800s.

This decanter is one step up on the scale of quality from the previous one, so whilst this does have cutting, it is pretty minimalist.

Reference: The Decanter, Andy McConnell, page 313 & 421

Height: 11 inches

Width: 4.5 inches

This is a shaft and globe shaped decanter. The body is cut with three rows of oval printies, and the neck is scale cut along it's length. The stopper is a blown ball cut with panels and printies. Probably made 1850s to 70s.

This might be considered the typical Victorian decanter. Whilst these shaft and globe decanters were very popular, and this is a quality item that can be bought cheaply, there are issues with this design type. The practicality problem with these decanters is particularly apparent in this one; the neck is long with a thin throat, and the body is wide, consequently cleaning inside the body of the decanter is awkward. In the days when you had servants to take things away and clean them straight away this wasn't problem. So if you get one of these decanters and use it, remember clean it straight away as if anything dries out inside it will be difficult to shift afterwards.

Reference: The Decanter, Andy McConnell, page 314 & 421

Height: 11 inches

Width: 4.5 inches

This is a shaft and globe shaped decanter. The stopper is a blown ball. Probably made 1880s to 1900s.

The shaft and globe decanters I have been showing you here have been getting progressively better in quality. You may now be thinking what is he talking about, this one has no cutting at all. The think about cutting is that it can be used to hide a plethora of glass quality issues, but when you blow something as fine as this there must be no glass quality issues or they will be immediately apparent.

if you compare this decanter to the first shaft and globe decanter in this sequence, they are both finely blown, but the similarity ends there. That decanter as some serious quality issues, most are not really that visible in the picture but the most obvious is the scuff marks in the glass of the neck of the decanter. That is not surface dirt that is a problem with manufacture.

Reference: The Decanter, Andy McConnell, page 314

Height: 11 inches

Width: 4.5 inches

This is a fancy shaped decanter. The body of the decanter has two rows of cut lens with vertical lines cut between them, and panel cut shoulders. The neck has a solid downward frill about the base and vertical slice cutting the length of the neck. The stopper is hollow flat cut vertical rhomboid coming to an oblique point. Probably made in the 1840s or 50s.

This heavy decanter is typical of the early Victorian decanters that were made once the tax on glass by weight was removed. Some people consider these decanters to have no artistic merit, but they are good solid practical decanters that should sit well on the table of anyone.

Fancy shape is a term coined to describe decanters with this kind of frill near the base of the neck. At the time it must have been considered fancy.

Reference: The Decanter, Andy McConnell, page 313 & 330

Height: 11 inches

Width: 4 inches

This is a bell shaped decanter, with a stopper that reflects the shape inversely. It has thick vertical moulded ribs to the body and stopper. It also has notches cut out of the ribs on the body and panels cut into the shoulders. Probably made in the 1830s or 70s.

These bell shaped ribbed decanters are relatively common and were used in pubs and hotels for a long period of time. This one is of superior quality to most in that it is heavier and also has some additional cutting.

Reference: The Decanter, Andy McConnell, page 401

Reference: The Decanter Ancient to Modern, Andy McConnell, page 338

Height: 13 inches

Width: 3.5 inches

This is a tall slim urn shaped decanter, with shallow prisms cut to the lower half of the body and brilliant cut hobnails to the upper half. The slopping shoulders and neck are cut with panels. The blow stopper widens towards the top and is cut with hobnails that match those of the body. Probably made 1890-1900.

To me, this is one of the highs of elegance of the Victorian era. The decanter is tall, slim, well made, good proportions, and the matching cutting on the body and stopper balances the design. I really like this decanter.

Height: 13 inches

Width: 3.5 inches

This is a pair of bottle shaped decanters, in dark purple with rib moulded bodies. The stoppers are metal and cork with mother of pearl inserts inscribed with Claret and Brandy in gothic script. Probably made in the 1850s.

These were never made to be fitted with glass stoppers and if these are the original stoppers would have has stoppers of this type. This is not a common type they would have been made to go on a stand and they also come in a wide variety of colours, the main ones being green, blue and brown.

Reference: The Decanter, Andy McConnell, page 331

Height: 13 inches

Width: 3.25 inches

This is a bottle shaped decanter with columns of lens cut in the body, cross hatched cutting to shoulder, slices and diamond scales cut into the neck. It also has a frilled pouring lip and tall cut stopper. Made circa 1850-60.

Tall thin bottle shaped decanters such as this one are not very stable on the table and were made to fit into silver or silver plate stands. These must have been made for people that trusted their servants as you can't lock the stands to prevent pilfering as you can on a tantalus.

Reference: The Decanter, Andy McConnell, page 332

Height: 13 inches

Width: 3 inches

This is a bottle shaped decanter with a row large printies cut in the body, cross hatched cutting to shoulder, and diamond scales cut into the neck. The stopper is cut to match the cross hatching on the shoulder of the decanter and is shaped like ball with a spire rising from it. Made circa 1850-60.

The stoppers with spires rising from them have been desribed as a transitional shape in many books I have read, however, I look at them as a perfectly valid shape in themselves. As with the previous decanter this was made to fit in a silver or silver plate stand.

Reference: The Decanter, Andy McConnell, page 332

Height: 13.25 inches

Width: 3 inches

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