AFA Summer 2018

Antiques & Fine Art 123 2018 T he collection of historic objects at Old Sturbridge Village, Massachusetts, is as varied as are the forty period buildings situated on the two hundred-plus acre campus. Comprising more than 50,000 artifacts made or used by rural New Englanders between 1790 and 1840, the core collection was assembled during the 1920s and 1930s by the Wells family, who amassed their wealth through American Optical, a business enterprise located in nearby Southbridge, Massachusetts. The Wells patriarch, Albert Bacheller “A.B.” Wells (1872–1955), was known for scouring the New England countryside for the unusual and the arcane—“oddities,” as he fondly referred to them. It was on one of those trips in 1927 that he discovered the subjects of this article: an attic window, doorway transom, and two sidelights, all accented with colorless glass cup plates bearing a profile image of Henry Clay (1777–1852), five-time presidential candidate and leader of the Whig party. 1 Each architectural element is contained in a white pine sash of pegged mortise-and-tenon construction, which encloses the lead frame and muntins that secure the blown-glass panes and pressed- glass plates. Various cast-metal rosette and foliate ornaments are applied to the inner frame and muntins as additional embellishment. The oval attic window (Fig. 1) features eighteen Henry Clay cup plates, while the transom (Fig. 2) is set with five, and the sidelights are set with three. All but one of the cup plates (Fig. 3) was produced from the same mold featuring two stars above Clay’s bust, the “N” reversed in HENRY, and a rim made up of twenty large scallops with a single, smaller scallop between. 2 The lone dissimilar plate is displayed in the attic window. It is a variation of the others and is set with newer plaster, suggesting it was added to replace a damaged original plate. Pressed-glass cup plates are strictly an American phenomenon. While ceramic examples were produced in England, primarily for the American market, nearly all pressed-glass examples were made and used in North America. Cup plates, which measure three to four inches in diameter were utilized much like a modern-day drink coaster. Prior to the Civil War, it was customary to pour the hot contents from a handle-less coffee- or teacup into an accompanying saucer to cool before consuming. A cup plate was used to rest the cup in order to avoid soiling the table linens. Cup plates were one of the first forms produced using the technology of mechanically pressing glass in metal molds, an innovative technique initially Important American Glass Architectural Elements in the Collection of Old Sturbridge Village by Jeffrey S. Evans Fig. 2: Transom, 14 x 78 Inches. Photograph by Al Weems.