The Technology That Began Steuben Glass
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1047-Y06-02
The Technology That Began Steuben Glass Jacob Israel Favela, and Pamela Vandiver Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85716 ABSTRACT Frederick Carder popularized art glass in America and is remembered as the founder and head of Steuben Glass Works. Carder, a designer and glass technologist trained in England, established the factory in Corning, New York, in 1903. The factory produced colored and highly decorated glass vessels that competed with but were less expensive than those of Tiffany Studios. To understand the differences in technology between the competing products of Carder and Tiffany, especially the type called “aurene,” we analyzed and compared opalescent white glass formulations, iridized with thin-film, golden luster decoration and some examples decorated with combed trails containing silver. The methods of analysis are electron beam microprobe analysis and scanning-electron microscopy with simultaneous energy dispersive x-ray analysis. Analytical results show that Carder produced an affordable product by standardized processing that included opalescent compositions in a narrow range of soda-lime-silicate and lead-alkalisilicate glasses with calcium phosphate or boneash as an inexpensive but reliable opacifier, quite thick flashed “golden” lustrous coatings made from tin oxide or tin and silver, and relatively rough velvet- to satin-textured, iridescent, thin-film coatings that were formed during multiple rapid heat treatments.
INTRODUCTION The Art Nouveau movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries combined sophistication, elegance, and novelty in art with the technological progress of the Industrial Revolution. The use of stylized natural motifs and unique materials, such as glass, enamels, shell, coral and ivory, was encouraged among artisans beginning in the 1890’s. Two of the leading American glass manufacturers, Louis C. Tiffany and beginning in 1903 Frederick C. Carder, produced in their factories luxury glass goods that were similar in style; both used opalescent glass formulations, trailed and combed threaded decoration and fumed lusters for brilliant iridescent effects on the surfaces of various blown objects, such as lamps, vases and goblets [1, 2]. Tiffany called the production “favrile” and Carder patented the name “aurene.” Frederick Carder (1863-1963) was born and educated in the Stourbridge, the center of England’s glass industry. He was educated as an artist, potter, sculptor and designer. He won several art competitions and studied with the cameo glass master, John Northwood, who replicated the Portland vase. Carder worked for the Stevens and Williams glass factory during the day and taught art in the evenings at the Wordsley School of Art, until in 1903 he accepted an offer from Thomas G. Hawkes, owner of a glass decorating business, to establish the Steuben Glass Works in Corning, New York. He was sufficiently successful in the production, particularly of electric and gas shades and vessels, that in 1913 T
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