Bowl-shapes used on Georgian, Regency and Victorian stemware
Right then – if you could all just spare me a moment of your valuable
time, stop flicking elastic bands at each other at the back, there, and
just smarten yourselves up - you scruffy oiks - we can begin.
Now, you already know all there is to know about twist stems and the
various types of knop which can be used to decorate them, so it’s time
to find out about the things that sit on top of them - the proud,
swelling, smoothly contoured apogee of the glassmaker’s art – the bowl.
Bowls, of course, were the single most important part of any glass –
antique or otherwise – as without them you’d just be comfortably
ensconced at your dinner table trying to convey the delightful potations
served up by your host to eager lips and expectant palate by using an
(albeit nicely decorated) little glass stick. Crushed velvet waistcoats,
buffed and powdered embonpoints and knotted muslin cravats up and down
the country would be indelibly stained by whatever wines, brandies,
cordials, liqueurs, sacks or shrubs you managed to throw down yourself.
The bowl, quite simply, is absolutely integral when it comes to an
appreciation of the anatomy of period stemware, and getting to grips
with its functionality.
There is a frankly bewildering proclivity
amongst rather vulgar folk to categorise glasses not by the form in
which they are fashioned, but by the recommended contents which they are
purportedly intended to accommodate. Fortunately, this affliction is
mostly reserved for supposed relevance to modern glassware, and I have
appended a quite ridiculous picture of some two and half dozen
essentially identical glasses which have been arbitrarily designated for
use with specific wines. Spend an hour or so, if you must, trying to
discern the difference between glasses for Montepulciano and Dolcetto –
do have fun…
Of course, for more enlightened folk such as
ourselves, there are indeed substantively different forms of antique
stemware bowls which have to be acknowledged and understood. The
cognoscenti in any field have an innate need to categorise and formalise
the objects of their affections, and scholars of vitreous oenophiliac
vessels are no different, so let us begin.
Simple forms first –
overall shapes rather than more specific deviations. These were to
evolve as the advancements in technologies of glass production gathered
pace, being broadly representative of successive periods of development.
The earliest with which we will concern ourselves, dating from the
latter part of the 18th century, were conical or funnel bowls; fairly
rudimentary, it can be seen how these would have been reasonably
straightforward to produce once a degree of dexterity in working with
molten glass had been mastered. This basic shape - once the glass melt
itself had improved in quality and become more manageable - could then
be more easily shaped and formed by the use of tweezers or jacks, taglia
or simple metal rods. Hence the newly-malleable bowls were crimped,
rolled or otherwise shaped to give a variety of initially bell-like
forms, which would predominate until around 1760. More dextrous methods
of manipulating the molten mass and the development of improved glass
blowing techniques saw the introduction of ovoid bowls from the same
point onwards – with more smoothly contoured shapes coming to the fore –
and ultimately, with melt-handling and blowing skills having improved
yet further, the 1820’s would usher in curvaceous, fully-rounded bowls.
Within each of these basic categories, there are several subforms, and
it is these which I will attempt to describe more fully, in addition to
the basics as above. Obviously the accompanying pictures are the best
form of identification, but the text will hopefully be complementary
rather than cause any confusion…
Funnel or conical bowls:
generally fairly narrow, evenly proportioned with even, straight sides
rising from a simple abruptly-angled point where they joined the stem,
widening towards the rim; triangular in profile.
Trumpet bowls:
an evolution from the straight sided conical form, with curving sides
which flared gently outward as they rose from the stem, again with a
simple transition between the two pieces.
Round funnels: again
with even, straight sides and a triangular profile, but with a curved
joint at the stem; known as pointed round funnels where the sides
converge on their base at a sharper angle, this variation is
consequently less deep than the more obliquely profiled versions
Bucket bowls: uncurved, angled sides, but with a flat base - narrower
than the rim - immediately above the stem; straightforward and
unambiguous. Waisted bucket: flat bottomed, but with the
introduction of contoured sides that first curve slightly inwards then
outward towards the rim; straight-edged above the point of transition
from the inward curve
Flared waisted bucket: as above but with a noticeable curve to the sides which widen as they rise towards the rim
Ovoid forms: having profiles which consist of smooth, simple curves as
opposed to the compound curves of the round bowled glasses which were to
follow
Bell bowl: similar to a flared, waisted bucket, but with a
rounded base and hence having the profile of a standard bell shape.
Also waisted bell bowls, far less common and with an additional inward
transitional curve above the base.
Thistle bowl: with a fairly
narrow, round base (occasionally solid) below a waist and then a conical
section – sometimes flared - giving the characteristic recurved profile
Cup: having a wide, rounded base, as with a bell bowl, but sides that
then converge towards the rim, these being either straight or
increasingly curved, as the tendency towards round bowls became more
prevalent
Ogee bowl: the first complex or multiple-curved bowls.
An ogee is a profile resembling an abbreviated letter “S: these sit on
stems which widened towards the top so that the sides of the bowl, once
they had completed their curving progress, would rise in a line parallel
to a point on the flaring stem
Double Ogee: more a case of being
an ogee and a half than two complete pairs of curves, as the bottom
contour of one ogee forms the top of the other
Pan top: a
similar construction to a double ogee, but with a far more noticeable
dissonance between the contiguous curved sections, the top one being
considerably wider than its lower counterpart
Double conical: a
rare form giving the impression of a two-part construction with one
conical bowl appearing to sit inside the thickened rim of another
less-wide one below it.
Barrel bowls: similar to a cup, but with a
(generally) straight bottom above the stem which is a very similar
width to the rim, giving an evenly proportioned profile
Tulip bowl: essentially a cup bowl with a waist towards the top which then flares out to the rim
As with the catalogue of knops, it was always possible that basic bowls
could have additional embellishments, hence the bell and bucket bowls
which have waists applied, but hopefully this little lot will give you
the vocabulary to readily describe pretty much anything that you might
come across, and if you do find something that isn’t covered here,
please do let us know !
No search returns with this piece as, of course, all glasses have bowls - instead, use our search function yourself to track down specific types as described above...
