Useful, decorative, easy to store and not prohibitively expensive, small pieces of table glass are an ideal field for the new collector.

Formal meals were important social occasions in the life of well-to-do families of the 18th and 19th centuries, and every well-equipped household had many decorative yet functional items of glassware to adorn the table. From glass salvers and sweetmeat dishes to celery glasses and epergnes, most are now highly collectable.

Salvers and Sweetmeat Dishes

The first raised glass platters for displaying food at the table were the work of 17th- century Venetian glass makers. By the early 18th century, glass salvers had become popular in Britain and they remained in vogue for some zoo years. Eighteenth-century British salvers have a raised border made by folding the glass down at the edge and then turning it up again. This procedure leaves a small lip below the surface as well as above, whereas most 19th-century examples have only a turned-up edge.

Antique Collection

Salvers were made in a range of sizes — from 3 to 13 in (7.5-33 cm) in diameter — so that they could be stacked in a grand pyramid- shaped display. Various stem designs were made, the commonest being an eight-sided style known as the Silesian stem. Some, however, followed changing wine-glass styles with baluster, opaque twist or air twist stems. Salvers are relatively inexpensive today: £150-1350 should buy an early hand-made example, just £24-£35 a later mass-produced piece (often called a comport or cake stand).

Sweetmeat glasses were stemmed vessels used for the small sweet items that accompanied the dessert, such as sugared almonds and candied peel. The double-ogee bowl was most popular — usually with moulded or cut decoration and a Silesian stem; it now goes for £350-£550. Bowls with stems in contemporary wine-glass styles tend to be worth more. One distinctive type of bowl has a toothed edge — known as a `dentil’ rim — often combined with a short, plain or opaque twist, stem and a foot with radiating grooves.

A system of glass taxes meant that glass thick enough for deep cutting was particularly expensive. Eighteenth-century cutting therefore tends to be rather flat and shallow on thinner glass. In the Regency period, decorative cutting was made deeper and more detailed, with the use of flat panels, bands of diamonds and fine, close lines.

Jelly and Custard Glasses

Special serving glasses for creams, custards, jellies and other set desserts have been made since the 17th century. Most 17th and 18th century jelly glasses are funnel or narrow-bell shaped, and 3%-5 in (9-13 cm) high. A variation intended for syllabub has a wider top section, or `pantop’, to hold a layer of whipped cream. Jelly and syllabub glasses vary widely in value from around £30 up to £500, but most pieces are moderately priced and the range of styles gives ample scope for the collector.

The 1830s saw the introduction of shorter cups, usually maintaining Regency cutting styles, and with a single handle. Initially for punch, by the 1880s they were being sold as custard glasses. Regency examples now fetch £30-£45, Edwardian ones £8-£12,. Jelly and custard glasses from the 1880s on tend to be more thinly blown, with fern-leaf engraving or acid-etched decoration.

A particular type of dish was developed for serving posset (a hot spicy milk drink curdled with wine or ale). Posset cups from the 17th and early 18th centuries generally have a spout and two handles, occasionally in a double-loop or ‘B’ handle design, and are worth £500-£ 1000. If you find one with a single ‘B’ handle, check carefully to make sure it did not originally have two.

During the 18th century, first spouts and then handles were gradually left off. At the same time, the variety of styles of bowl and decoration increased. As with sweetmeat glasses, flat, shallow cutting is usually a sign of an 18th-century piece, while moulded vertical ribs, with or without finely cut notches, indicates a 9th-century date.

Other Tablewares

Among the variety of table glass that can be found from the early 19th century are Regency cut-glass decanters, celery vases and water jugs — which can be bought for £8o-£25o — and cut-glass salt cellars which go for £40-£80. Coloured glass became popular for cream jugs, sugar bowls and decanters and is now very collectable. A small, plain blue decanter may cost £80, a matching set of decanters with gilt labels for Brandy, Rum and Hollands (gin) £800-£900, while a large elaborate coloured decanter may make £1500.

In the late 19th century, new manufacturing techniques made glassware available to a much wider market. With press moulding all these items could be made more cheaply — sometimes to imitate cut glass. Prices start at Ex -E2 for simple objects such as knife rests, rising to £100 or more for moulded and coloured bowls by particular makers.

The Victorians also introduced decorative table items such as epergnes and posy troughs for holding flowers. Prices today range from about £120 for a simple clear-glass epergne to around £500 for an elaborate coloured one with as many as six branches. Press-moulded posy troughs often came in a mixture of curved and straight sections so that they could be assembled in different patterns. Plain single sections can be found for £5-£10 each, but a patterned four-section set could cost £250.

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Table Glass