How the pedestal stem moved from early 18th century affectation to a staple of Regency glass design
Right – deep breath required for
this one, everyone…..and - let’s begin:
The term pedestal stem is another
example of the glass collecting fraternity feeling the irresistible urge to
come up with a collective name which can be applied to a disparate range of
glasses which all share a specific characteristic, and do not fit in to any
other readily available category. It is the current vogueish replacement for
the now largely redundant term “Silesian stem”, which was originally coined due
the fact that glasses with a particular common feature may possibly have come –
in the first instance - from central Europe, perhaps Silesia; which definitely
appeared when there was a Hanoverian (or German) King on the throne of England;
that kind of resemble the sort of thing that Bohemian glassmakers were once
fond of turning out and which were once deemed to be just as likely to have
come from Thuringia, a German former landgraviate which was also referred to as
a “Stammesherzogtümer” or Stem Duchy, which ceased to exist as an
administrative entity for 700 years before being resurrected as a federal state
in the aftermath of the First World War. And if that sounded a little
disjointed and nonsensical, it was supposed to – there is no irrefutable proof
that any of that had any bearing on the derivation of the term Silesian stem –
which is, to be honest, why it has been discarded over more recent, thoughtful
times. The apparent willingness at one time or another to quite happily accept
this purported Silesian or Thuringian heritage for glasses of this nature is,
one can surmise, due to the fact that they most definitely bore a resemblance
to Bohemian glasses which were available around 1700 with cut stems, exhibiting
distinctive long, flat facets – a rather non-specific central European
background must have therefore seemed to be an at least partly plausible
hypothesis to the casual observer. Earlier glasses of a similar structure have
been attributed to Venetian glasshouses but it should be noted that in spite of
all this much-mooted European provenance, the earliest example of a properly moulded
pedestal stem that has been demonstrably shown to come from a traceable source
is an English-made example from 1715. It is entirely likely that English
glassmakers sought to reproduce purportedly German styles to take advantage of
the clamour for all things Teutonic once a certain Georg Ludwig had been
installed on the throne the previous year. It’s the moulding that
is the key to differentiating later pedestals from the early cut versions –
more of that anon…
Initially, however – cast your
mind back to our discourse on baluster stems, and consider from which sphere of
endeavour that particular name was borrowed (come on now – think…); ready or
not, it’s time to plunge once again in to the murky world or architecture…
Balusters you may recall were the
vertical, features with distinctive, symmetrically curved, profiles that were
used to construct balustrades or bannisters, and the term was appropriated to
mean any glass stem that shared a similar form. Pedestals, or plinths, are
similarly architectural features which supported columns or pilasters, from
Roman times to the renaissance, adding both a firm physical footing and an
enhanced notion of stability and structural integrity to whatever it was they
were placed underneath. It therefore seemed entirely reasonable to use the same
term to refer to glass stems which did a similar job for the bowls on to which
they were fused. Further commonality can be found with the fact that most
pedestal stems were, in fact, inverted balusters – wider at the top near the
bowl and narrower at the foot, a characteristic which ideally suited their
means of production.
Whatever the derivation of the
name, the process by which pedestal stems was made is less open to conjecture –
they were produced using moulds, but not in what might be regarded as the
conventional manner. Instead of entirely filling the void carved within a form
of wood or sand with near-liquid glass, more akin to the manner in which molten
metal would be cast, the process would see an unmarvered mass of glass (which
would become a parison if it were to be subsequently blown, but it wasn’t, so
let’s just call it a blob) placed in to the most capacious part of a two-part
mould. The corresponding half was then set in to position, squashing the blob
in to place, and still-malleable crystal then be pulled or drawn through the
full length of the mould, tapering from one end to the other. This – helpfully
– gives yet another twist to the names of the stems, in that they are sometimes
known as having been drawn (and whatever you do ignore the use of the word
twist just now – they’re another wholly different form of stem entirely…) So,
now we know how to make the things, but what they should properly be called is
about as clear as some of Ravenscroft’s earliest abortive, badly crizzled lead
crystal, full of sooty inclusions, unintentional tears, unfused silicates and -
well, basically lacking any sort of clarity whatsoever…
It’s possible to indulge in further
obfuscation if one takes on board that the pedestal stems drawn in this manner
were being made with the intention of ending up with flat rather than rounded
edges (similar to the Bohemian cut facets as above) – four to the earliest
examples and with later pieces being hexagonal or octagonal in section. As
these stems would feature elongated “panels” on each side, it will come as no
surprise to you that they were sometimes
referred to as panel stems – so that’s now five distinct names for essentially
the same thing !
In the context of stemware, the
pedestals were used predominantly with funnel or trumpet bowls, though a browse
through our back catalogue will demonstrate that single and double ogees (both
lipped and waisted), buckets, round funnels (sometimes saucer topped) and
saucer-topped cups also made an appearance. The stems themselves may well be
further augmented with merses or cushion knops to the top and/or bottom, and –
not uncommonly –with cut or moulded stars at the widest point which formed
something akin to a false shoulder-knop. Equally, it was not uncommon for the
stems to also be decorated by the inclusion of tears, or impressed graphic
elements or text that were included in the moulds. The addition of these
plinth-like features at either end would ensure that the finished stems
resembled architectural pedestals even more closely.
What you cannot fail to have
noticed when taking a look at any selection of pedestal stemware is that the
stems had a tendency to be quite substantial, and ultimately this helped the
form to endure long after its initial popularity with the drinking public had
waned. As the 18th century progressed, we have already established
that an ever-increasing amount of glass tableware was required to adorn
Gillows’ finest mahogany pieces of the upwardly mobile and rather bourgeois
middle classes; sweetmeat bowls were amongst these newly-indispensable
accoutrements, and what better to provide a solid base for something that
diners were going to be manhandling and jostling than a nice, sturdy pedestal
stem. In combination with lipped, scalloped, waisted or flared ogee, double
ogee, round funnel or saucer bowls, these pedestal-stemmed sweetmeats remained
popular until the advent of the Regency period, meaning that the stem-type –
under any one of its five different guises – remained at the forefront of
British glass design for the best part of 100 years.
the items in the image below show pedestal stemware from the 1730 and 1740's, then the 1750's, 1760's and finally late Georgain and Regency pedestal sweetmeats
