Carnival Glass

Martha Stewart Living Magazine

Glamorous and dowdy, luminescent and solid, mysteriously shimmering with elusive colors on crisply molded, emphatic shapes, carnival glass has a dual personality. These pressed-glass objects - bowls, plates, compotes, tumblers, and countless other items - were originally made to be affordable, functional, and attractive. Replete with grapes, peacocks, and other symbols of abundance and luxury, the designs looked old-fashioned even when they were new, nearly a century ago. But over their ornate, almost Victorian forms they wear a raffish, eye-beguiling mask of magic. Iridescent sprays create random rainbows, spectral tones, and reflections that seem to foreshadow the improvisational action painting of the 1940s and '50s, as well as the psychedelia of the '60s. If Jackson Pollock and Peter Max had collaborated with your great-grandmother, the result might have been early carnival glass.

The first examples were introduced in 1907 by Fenton Art Glass, a West Virginia glassworks still in business; other American manufacturers soon developed rival lines to satisfy the enormous demand for these decorative wares. What modern collectors regard as carnival's "classic" period ended around 1925, with the increasing mechanization of glass production and changing tastes, which favored simpler shapes and less showy surfaces. Nevertheless, some carnival and changing tastes, which favored simpler shapes and less showy surfaces. Nevertheless, some carnival glass continued to be made through the thirties, not only in the United States but also in Argentina, Australia, Czechoslovakia, England, Sweden, and other countries that had followed America's lead.

The glass we now know as carnival was originally marketed under names like Iridescent, Pompeian, and Iridill as an inexpensive alternative to Tiffany Studios' costly handblown favrile and opalescent art glass. This "poor man's Tiffany" (to use one of carnival's many nicknames) was pressed in molds, though it still required plenty of handwork. Craftsmen had to crimp hot glass to shape scalloped or fluted rims, and spray a liquid metallic salt solution onto individual items. Specific color effects depended on the temperature of the glass and the number of layers sprayed on. The slightest variation in conditions produced a different result, so each piece is unique. Manufacturers viewed spraying as a craft. "It took an experienced sprayer to develop the right colors," says Howard Seufer, a longtime head of quality control for Fenton, which has been making new versions of carnival glass since the sixties.

The name carnival came into use in the fifties or sixties, when pioneering collectors of early pieces believed the glass had fallen so far out of fashion that it had been given out as cheap prizes on the midway. This may be a myth, but carnival seems appropriate for a glass that's colorful and fun. Pieces can command serious prices, however - in the thousands of dollars for classics in rare colors and patterns. The increased availability of foreign carnival glass has complicated a category that was once considered Americana, and look-alikes manufactured since the fifties can be mistaken for classics.

To narrow the vast carnival spectrum, we're showing only golden-tone glass here (and we've mixed in other glassware in similar hues). The signature color in this palette is the tinted glass to which the glaze is applied. To create marigold, however, clear glass is sprayed with iron chloride. Carnival-glass expert Glen Thistlewood, author of books on the subject and writer of an e-mail newsletter for the Woodland World Wide Carnival Glass Association, speculates that marigold may have been a best-seller in the early twentieth century because indoor light levels were low and the furniture was dark. "Put marigold on a mission oak table, light one small lamp," she says, "and the glass just glows."

Thanks to its popularity back when carnival glass was a novelty, marigold remains the most plentiful hue of all, and it is generally affordable. You can understand why Thistlewood says that "just about every collector starts with marigold." That warm glow - evocative of harvest moons, jack-o'-lanterns, and turning leaves - has lost none of its original appeal. And there's a Halloween-like touch of the outrageous in those flamboyant ruffles, swirls, and loops that makes each glassmaker's trick a lasting treat.
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