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Columbian
Exposition
Revisited You may know it better as the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, but its theme was a celebration of progress commemorating the 400th anniversary of Columbus discovering America. OK, they were a year late, but that sometimes happened with World's Fairs. The 1893 Fair really was a landmark happening and served to showcase America's technological advances to that date. Some of the notable "firsts" for this event were the Ferris wheel, the hamburger and the picture postcard. Total attendance was equal to half of the population of the United States at the time! William L. Libbey, who had taken over operation of the older New England Glass Company, decided to establish an identity for his Company in a big way - by building an entire glass factory at the Fair to let the public see his 130 glass blowers and cutters at work and be able to purchase the articles they were making as souvenirs.. Libbey later boasted in their ads that nearly two million visitors had visited their special factory. Admission to the Libbey exhibit cost the princely sum of 10 cents but included a free souvenir piece of glass. (Presumably this was something cheaper than a rose bowl.) One of the items that Libbey chose to manufacture and sell at the Fair was a lovely peachblow rose bowl made from glass according to a formula developed earlier by the New England Glass Co. These bowls have unique features enabling them to be readily recognized by today's collectors and they are a highly prized part of any rose bowl collection. This article will lead you through how to identify the World's Fair product and show you the variations in the bowls that were produced. All of the World's Fair peachblow rose bowls that I have examined posses several characteristics:
The above picture shows two sizes of bowls (approximately 2 3/4 and 3 3/4 inches in height) in satin finish which show the above characteristics. They also show another important identifier - they are embellished in gilt with decorated lettering spelling out their origin. This decoration has usually darkened with age and some portions of the letters may have worn off. The same two sizes are also found in undecorated versions as shown below.
Now for some additional variations - other than the two sizes. The next figure shows that these bowls were made in both satin (acid treated) and glossy finish. These can be found in both sizes - with the satinized version being much more common. I have never seen a decorated glossy bowl but they certainly may exist.
Below we see another variation - a ribbed bowl. Twelve ribs on this example to be exact. Likely, ribbed bowls can be found in two sizes and also in glossy finish, but none have surfaced that I have personally seen. Perhaps the ribbed versions were also decorated - but this would be more difficult with the protruding ribs.
And now for another portion of the story - lacking solid documentation - but accepted by many collectors. Apparently the demand for souvenir peachblow rose bowls at the Fair greatly exceeded expectations and Libbey was forced to find a way to quickly boost production. They turned to their rival, the Mount Washington Glass Company, where William L. Libbey had also worked earlier, for help. Additional bowls were manufactured by Mount Washington, using the old New England Glass Company formula, to satisfy World's Fair demand. Whether these bowls were made in Mount Washington's Massachusetts plant or additional glassblowers went to Chicago to work in the on site factory is not known. The figure below shows another clue to the truth of the above story. Here is a beautiful little creamer, with all the characteristics of a World's Fair ribbed satinized peachblow piece - but decorated with a daisy pattern which looks like it came straight from Mount Washington's decorating department. Is it possible that someone will turn up a rose bowl decorated this way? (It is also known that World's Fair sugar and creamer sets were made in many of the variations of the peachblow rose bowls).
Pricing for World's Fair peachblow rose bowls shown here would range from $350-500 for the decorated satin versions (both sizes) depending on the condition of the decoration ; down to $250-350 for undecorated satin bowls. Plain glossy finish bowls would be about $50 higher than their satin counterparts and the ribbed satin versions carry at least a $150 premium. Finally, the last figure shows a lightly ribbed blue satin decorated bowl in the smaller size - but with eight rather tight crimps. Perhaps there are as many variations in the blue product as there are in peachblow - but that's another story. Many other glass items, including threaded rose bowls, paperweights, cups etc. were also sold as souvenirs of the Columbian Exposition and are sought after by collectors.
by Stu Horn |
