Floral Engraved Opaque Twist Georgian Wine Glass c1760

Description

Heading : Opaque Twist Georgian Engraved Wine Glass
Period : George II – George III
Origin : England 
Colour : Clear 
Bowl : Ogee; engraved with a bee. a carnation with exaggerated pointed tips to its six petals. half a dozen rose leaves and a single. partially-open bud
Stem : A single. spiralling tape made up of sixteen very thin. closely packed threads around a pair of corkscrew tapes.
Foot : Conical
Pontil : Snapped 
Glass Type : Lead 
Size :  15.6 cm height.  6.3 cm diameter bowl. 7.1 cm diameter foot 
Condition : Excellent. no chips. flakes or cracks; some tiny inclusions and burst bubbles to the bowl. residual twisted indentations from manufacture to the stem. and some dusty debris picked up by the pontil scar; a little mossing to the extreme edge of the foot-rim.
Restoration : None 
Weight:  157 grams 

Notes : A carnation – a bee – a bud – all the ingredients of the typical Jacobite melodrama engraved upon period glassware! All the romantic intrigue of deposed royalty. a dalliance with a swooning local girl. desperate cross-country flight under the muzzles of musket-wielding troopers and their bloodthirsty commanders a tragic denouement on a desolate battlefield (and a confusing. irrelevant and untrue epilogue about someone hiding up a tree for good measure) – wow !

The Intire Glass Shop advertised Flower’d glasses on their trade card as early as 1742. With floral designs featuring prominently in decorators books of the period it seems entirely natural that an engraver would choose to use a theme from the natural world to adorn glassware. just as painters did for porcelain. This is a far more plausible reason for the engraving than hidden support for a lost cause. just much less romantic and far less commercial.

Carnations were used as a metaphor for for coronation and they do appear within much Jacobite imagery.

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.”

Ground Bees. Moths and Butterflies were used to represent the “returning soul”. This has been explained within these pages many times. Buds and roses and rose leaves are widely understood. The combination of rose leaves with a carnation is incongruous from a botanical perspective. but this does not mean that it must therefore have any Jacobite relevance. however. we accept that it may be the case.

It has also been suggested that this is one element within an acrostic set. Specifically a set of wine glasses each engraved with a different flower the first letter of which when combined have some Jacobite relevance. CRLSTRT being a well known example. This may also be a possibility.