Jelly glass

Object Type
One of the simplest form of jelly glass, a funnel-shaped bowl on a slightly-domed foot, which was made in infinite variety and huge numbers during the second half of the 18th century and early 19th century.

Materials & Making
As with much Staffordshire pottery of the period, English lead-glass drinking vessels and dessert wares successfully combined refined material with consummate skill. Here, the bowl and foot of a humble jelly glass have been blown separately into a mould to form a mesh pattern (as a cheap imitation of facet-cutting), and the two pieces joined with a small 'knop' (a decorative bulbous swelling) of molten glass. The foot is domed to raise the pontil scar well above a polished mahogany table (the scar is the rough mark left when the pontil, or metal rod, used for handling the glass during manufacture is broken off). The edge is folded to strengthen it and terminate the mesh-moulding. It is said that a glassmakers' 'chair', consisting of a 'gaffer' in his special chair working in a perfectly-orchestrated way with three assistants, could make a three-piece wine glass in four minutes. No doubt this jelly glass would have taken about the same time.