
Apsley Pellatt glass
scent bottle c. 1820s
with cameo incrustation
of William Shakespeare.
(from CPC 1999 Exhibtion site
reproduced with permission.)
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Apsley Pellatt glass
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Apsley Pellatt Glass: A short explanation:
Apsley Pellatt IV joined his father's glass business, Pellatt and Green, in London around 1811 at the age of 21. The company owned the Falcon Glass House in Blackfriars and a large showroom at St. Paul's Churchyard. Apsley Pellatt IV took over the company when his father died in 1826 and in the early 1830s the company name was changed to Apsley Pellatt.
Along with prominent scientists of the early 18th century (Humphrey Davey and Michael Faraday) the Pellatt's took a great interest in glass chemistry. Michael Faraday recorded in his notebooks that an experimental glassworks was built at Pellatt and Green's Falcon Glass House premises for experiments on optical glass in the 1820s.
In 1819 Apsley Pellatt IV took out a patent for "crystallo ceramie" - the process of encasing a medallion in glass, later called "Cameo Incrustation" and "Sulphides". In 1821 he wrote a book about this process "Memoir on the Origin, Progress and Improvement of Glass Manufacture including .....Glass Incrustations" and in 1849 he enlarged and revised this text under the title "Curiosities of Glass-Making".
Apsley Pellatt made decanters, paperweights, scent bottles, jugs, mugs, and various other items in clear high quality crystal glass with cameo incrustations during the 1820s through to around 1850. This was not a major part of the company's production, which was primarily high quality cut crystal glass. But it is the part for which they are best known today.
Apsley Pellatt glass with cameo incrustations (sulphides) are rare and valuable today. They may be marked with any of the following:
Pellatt & Green
Apsley Pellatt
Apsley Pellatt & Co.
Pellatt & Co.
Cut glass went out of fashion in the 1850s and along with it went the sulphides, although in recent years the process has been revived in the great French glassworks of Baccarat. In the 1850s Apsley Pellatt turned to engraved glass, and also to politics. He was Member of Parliament for Southwark from 1852-1857. When he died in 1863 the company was taken over by his younger brother Frederick Pellatt (1807-1874) but it declined in importance through the 70s, 80s and 90s, and seems to have disappeared into a labyrinth of subdivisions and take-overs.
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