Credit: © The Royal Society
Image number: RS.10729
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Glassworkers cutting glass
Date
1849
Creator
Unknown, Artist
Object type
Library reference
22201
Material
Technique
Dimensions
height (painting): 113mm
width (painting): 105mm
width (painting): 105mm
Subject
Description
Scene showing two glassworkers engaged in the manufacturing of cut glass, probably at the Apsley Pellatt & Company’s Falcon Glassworks at Holland Street, Blackfriars, London.
Figure from page 124 of the book Curiosities of glass making with details of the processes and productions of ancient and modern ornamental glass manufacture by Apsley Pellatt (David Bogue, London, 1849).
Inscribed below: “Glass Cutting, as practised in factories where steam power is used...” The author described the process within the accompanying text: “Glass-cutting, or more properly, Glass grinding...is too well-known to need minute description. A cast-iron wheel has sand and water dropping from the hopper, while revolving a lathe propelled by steam power; the friction of the grit of the sand, reduces to its required form the Glass places beneath it. A stone wheel with water smoothes out the rough sand marks and prepares it for polishing, which is effected by means of a willow wood wheel, first with a mixture of pumice and rotten stone, and finished by the same wood wheel, or lap, with putty-powder.”
Apsley Pellatt (1791-1863) was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the Royal Society in 1851. He was a British glassware manufacturer in the family company of Pellatt and Green, later renamed Apsley Pellatt & Co. He was MP for Southwark.
Figure from page 124 of the book Curiosities of glass making with details of the processes and productions of ancient and modern ornamental glass manufacture by Apsley Pellatt (David Bogue, London, 1849).
Inscribed below: “Glass Cutting, as practised in factories where steam power is used...” The author described the process within the accompanying text: “Glass-cutting, or more properly, Glass grinding...is too well-known to need minute description. A cast-iron wheel has sand and water dropping from the hopper, while revolving a lathe propelled by steam power; the friction of the grit of the sand, reduces to its required form the Glass places beneath it. A stone wheel with water smoothes out the rough sand marks and prepares it for polishing, which is effected by means of a willow wood wheel, first with a mixture of pumice and rotten stone, and finished by the same wood wheel, or lap, with putty-powder.”
Apsley Pellatt (1791-1863) was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the Royal Society in 1851. He was a British glassware manufacturer in the family company of Pellatt and Green, later renamed Apsley Pellatt & Co. He was MP for Southwark.
Associated place