Clichy Paperweight
date: label: date made
content: 1845-1850
name: label: maker
content: Clichy
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: The French firm, Verrerie de Clichy, began operation after merging with another local glassworks in 1837. The height of paperweight production at the firm was 1846 to 1857.
label: Description (Brief)
content: Pentagon-shaped rows of millefiori, are imbedded in an opaque white ground in this Clichy paperweight. 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
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: Aaron and Lillie Straus
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: CE.60.25
label: catalog number
content: 60.25
label: accession number
content: 211475
objectType: label: Object Name
content: paperweight
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: glass, transparent (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: millifiori (joint piece production method/technique)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 2 1/16 in x 3 1/16 in; 5.23875 cm x 7.77875 cm