When the influence of Art Nouveau arrived in the United States from Europe late in the nineteenth century, it just happened to coincide with the electrification of the major cities of this nation. It is not surprising, therefore, that Art Nouveau motifs appear in the early light fixtures used around the turn of the century.
Some of the choicest and most beautiful pieces of glass ever made were created in shade from during this period. The shades were made of high-quality irredescent glass by expert workmen and decorated with hot glass of various colors that was worked into the main body of the piece while the glass was hot. All pieces were hand blown and the decorated shades took much time and effort to make. This made them expensive. The motifs, usually depicting nature, consisted of feathers, leaves and veins, flowers, fishnets, swirls, and other decorations which could be made by pulling the hot glass with a steel hook while the thread of glass was in a plastic state.
The three leading producers, all East Coast firms, were: The Quezal Glass and Decorating Company of Brooklyn, New York; the Steuben Glass Works of Coring, New York; and the Tiffany Glass Company, which had a glass furnace in Corona, Long Island, New York. The Tiffany Company was also known as Tiffany Furnaces.
Other firms, which made lesser amounts of hand-blown iridescent glass, included in the Lustre Art Glass Company of Long Island, New York; Durand, namely the Vineland Flint Glass Works of Vineland, New Jersey; and Fostoria Glass Company, situated in Fostoria, Ohio.
It appears that the people at Quezal produced the most varied and colorful shades. The Quezal firm, named after the colorful Central American bird of the same name, was active from 1901 to 1924. The Brooklyn-based company employed highly trained gaffers, and the best of these excelled in decorating shades, as well as other glass products.
This is much in evidence when the surviving pieces are examined closely. Quezal glass of all kinds, from vases and compotes to gold iridescent salt dips, is favored by many collectors of fine hand-blown iridescent glass.
The early Quezal shades bear the engraved signature "QUEZAL" on the inside of the fitter rim. This was cut into the glass by using an engraving tool. The later shades appear to have been signed in the same position using an acid etching method. Some of the acid-etched signatures were then gone over with a silver pencil after the cutting was completed.
Many of the engraved signatures are works of art and are easily recognizable. I have never seen an unsigned shade though to have been made by Quezal: close to 100 percent of the shades leaving the Quezal factory must have been signed.
In 1903 an Englishman, Frederick Carder, and three other men formed the Steuben Galss Works in Corning, New York. The new firm was named for Steuben County, in which Corning is located. The new glassworks planned to make hand-blown iridescent glass of high quality in a variety of shapes and sizes and for many uses.
This was accomplished with notable success. Within a very
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