Bacchus & Sons Paperweight
date: label: date made
content: mid 1800s
name: label: maker
content: Bacchus & Sons
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: In the 1700s, paperweights made from textured stone or bronze were part of the writer’s tool kit, which also included a quill pen and stand, inkpot, and blotter. By the mid-1800s, decorative paperweights produced by glassmakers in Europe and the United States became highly desired collectibles.
label: Description (Brief)
content: Decorative glass paperweights reflected the 19th-century taste for intricate, over-the-top designs. Until the spread of textiles colorized with synthetic dyes, ceramics and glass were among the few objects that added brilliant color to a 19th-century Victorian interior. The popularity of these paperweights in the 1800s testifies to the sustained cultural interest in hand craftsmanship during an age of rapid industrialization.
label: Description (Brief)
content: George Bacchus and Sons began making millefiori paperweights in Birmingham, England in the 1840s. Relatively few Bacchus paperweights are known today. Millefiore paperweights, first manufactured in Venice, consist of sections from rods of colored glass encased in a clear, colorless sphere. By the mid-nineteenth century, glass factories elsewhere in Europe were emulating the millefiore style.
label: Description (Brief)
content: Like most Bacchus and Sons paperweights, this example features closely packed concentric millefiori . Millefiore paperweights, first manufactured in Venice, consist of sections from rods of colored glass encased in a clear, colorless sphere. By the mid-nineteenth century, glass factories elsewhere in Europe were emulating the millefiore style.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United Kingdom: England, Birmingham, Birmingham
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Ceramics and Glass
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content: Paperweights
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content: Art
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content: Domestic Furnishings
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Mrs. Florence E. Bushee
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: CE.67.239
label: catalog number
content: 67.239
label: accession number
content: 213138
objectType: label: Object Name
content: paperweight
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: glass (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 2 7/16 in x 3 1/2 in; 6.19125 cm x 8.89 cm