Georgian Jacobite Sympathy Facet Cut Wine Glass c1770

Description

Heading : Georgian Jacobite sympathy facet cut wine glass 
Date : c1770
Period : George III
Origin : England
Colour : Clear
Bowl : An ogee bowl. Engraved with a carnation. honeysuckle and bee in flight
Stem : Unusual facet cut stem with scale and diamond cuts above and below a swelling knop
Foot : Conical
Pontil : Snapped
Glass Type : Lead
Size : 15.5cm tall.   5.5 cm bowl and 7cm foot
Condition : Excellent. no chips or cracks
Restoration : None
Weight :  145 grams

All collectors of Jacobite glass will be familiar with engraved Tudor or Stuart roses. Fewer are aware of the significance of Carnations. We don’t know precisely when this association between Carnations and the Jacobites was first made however there are some historical pointers.

Bonnie Prince Charlie was born on 31^st December 1720.  The following January was unseasonably warm and the Jacobite Times records…

“The year 1721 began with a burst of spring which terrified nervous people. ‘ Strange and ominous.’ was the comment on the suburban fields full of flowers. and on the peas and beans in full bloom at Peterborough House. Milbank. When the carnations budded in January. there was ‘ general amazement ‘ even among people who cut coarse jokes on the suicides. which attended the bursting of the South Sea bubble. The papers were quite funny. too. at the devastation. which an outbreak of smallpox was making among the young beauties of aristocratic families. The disease had silenced the scandal at tea tables. by carrying off the guests. and poor epigrams were made upon them.  Dying. dead. or ruined. everyone was laughed at.”

1720 was the low point for the Jacobite cause. A small combined Spanish and Highlander force had been defeated at the battle of Glenshiel the previous summer and it was fully four years since Prince James had set sail from Montrose following the 1715 uprising. James 111 was in his papal palace at the Piazza dei Santi Apostili and was consuming the funds of supporters. The very early budding of Carnations was a “sign”.

 There are numerous references in the chronicles and literature to later Jacobite parades being lead by “crosses of carnations” where the tomb of both pretenders were strewn with carnations each year as late as 1898

Honeysuckle was long used as a symbol of loyalty and appears on many Jacobite glasses. Carnation was also used as a onomatopoeic similie for coronation. CHarles may be another interpretation if thsi wer part of an acostic set of glasses