Engraved Double Knopped Air Twist Wine Glass c1750

Description

Heading : Engraved Double Knopped Air Twist Wine Glass
Period : George II
Origin : England
Colour : Clear, pale grey tone
Bowl : Round funnel engraved with a carnation in bloon another lartially open and five other buds and a moth in flight. See below
Stem :Multi-spital air twist with two swelling knops
Foot : Conical
Pontil : Snapped
Glass Type : Lead
Size : Height 20.7cm, bowl 9.7 and foot 11.2
Condition : Excellent
Restoration : None

Carnations and the Jacobite cause

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 poked fun 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”.

Carnations had been associated with “the cause” for quite some time. One of the earliest references we have found is from the first decade of the century.

In the first picture attached you will see a portrait of Princess Louise the princess royal or “Princess over the water” (youngest daughter of King James II and VII and sister to the Old Pretender, James Francis Edward Stuart) which was painted about 1704. The moth in flight is a widely accepted symbol of allegiance to what was always a lost cause after James II was routed in Ireland in 1690  at the Boyne. Converting back to Roman Catholocism when head of a Protestant church was alwasy going to offend most of a nation.