Mary Gregory (1856–1908) was an American

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...

known for her decoration of glass products at the

Boston and Sandwich Glass Company The Boston and Sandwich Glass Company was incorporated in 1826 to hold the glass factory built a year earlier in Sandwich, Massachusetts, by Deming Jarves. The factory was closed in 1888 amid disputes with a newly formed glassmakers' labor union ...

Cape Cod, Massachusetts Cape Cod is a peninsula extending into the Atlantic Ocean from the southeastern corner of mainland Massachusetts, in the northeastern United States. Its historic, maritime character and ample beaches attract heavy tourism during the summer mont ...

. Gregory worked for Boston and Sandwich from 1880 to 1884. Gregory painted lamps and plaques of landscape scenes during her years at B&SGC.

Early life and work

Gregory was born in Providence, Rhode Island to John Gregory and Hannah A. Gregory. Her mother was a school teacher in

Sandwich, Massachusetts Sandwich is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, and is the oldest town on Cape Cod. The town motto is ''Post tot Naufracia Portus'', "after so many shipwrecks, a haven". The population was 20,259 at the 2020 census. History Cape Cod wa ...

and Mary worked as a teacher as well from 1876 to 1879, but soon abandoned teaching to work for the

as a glass decorator, beginning in January 1880.

Victorian children

She was particularly well known for her paintings of

Victorian-era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardi ...

children, and such artwork has been referred to as ''Mary Gregory'' since the 1920s. The glass most likely came from

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, or

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. Despite this, many glass art enthusiasts continue to refer to such pieces as ''Mary Gregory.''

The "Mary Gregory" style

Glassware in the style of Mary Gregory continued after her tenure at the Boston and Sandwich glass factory from 1880 to 1884. Angela M. Bowey in The Glass Encyclopedia describes the distinguishing features of Mary Gregory glass as "stylised white enamel painting usually of a child in an outdoor setting, playing with such things as butterfly nets, bubbles, fishing rods, or hoops. The trees and foliage often have a typical "feathered" style, the figure is oddly old-fashioned in its proportions, and the enamel is fired onto the glass." The

Westmoreland Glass Company The Westmoreland Glass Company was a company that produced glass in Grapeville, Pennsylvania. History The Westmoreland Glass Company was founded in 1889 when a group of men purchased the Specialty Glass Company located in East Liverpool, Ohio, and ...

Grapeville, Pennsylvania Grapeville is a census-designated place (CDP) in Hempfield Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 676 at the 2000 census. Geography Grapeville is located at (40.324588, -79.606937). According to the Unit ...

began marketing their glasswork as ''Mary Gregory'' in the 1920s. They would create glass paintings of Victorian Era children in profile, and say it was done in the style of Mary Gregory. Westmoreland artists painted the cherubic white silhouettes on black milk glass plates, vases, glass boxes, heart-shaped plates, et cetera. In the 1970s, they also painted these scenes on blanks that they called Blue Mist – a semi-opaque glass with a

baby blue Baby blue is a tint of azure, one of the pastel colors. The first recorded use of ''baby blue'' as a color name in English was in 1892. Variations of baby blue Beau blue Beau blue is a light tone of baby blue. "Beau" means "beautiful" in F ...

tint to it. Many pieces of Mary Gregory also show up as

Cranberry Cranberries are a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs or trailing vines in the subgenus ''Oxycoccus'' of the genus ''Vaccinium''. In Britain, cranberry may refer to the native species ''Vaccinium oxycoccos'', while in North America, cranberry ...

plates, tumbler sets,

goblets A chalice (from Latin 'mug', borrowed from Ancient Greek () 'cup') or goblet is a footed cup intended to hold a drink. In religious practice, a chalice is often used for drinking during a ceremony or may carry a certain symbolic meaning. Re ...

glasses Glasses, also known as eyeglasses or spectacles, are vision eyewear, with lenses (clear or tinted) mounted in a frame that holds them in front of a person's eyes, typically utilizing a bridge over the nose and hinged arms (known as temples or ...

and so on.

Technique

Gregory, her sister, and possibly others she had trained, used a white

enamel paint Enamel paint is paint that air-dries to a hard, usually glossy, finish, used for coating surfaces that are outdoors or otherwise subject to hard wear or variations in temperature; it should not be confused with decorated objects in "painted ename ...

with ground glass as a paint mixture. To bind the paint to the glass, they fired it after application. It was fused with the piece in this manner so the painting became part of the glass. Similar artwork was made by literally dozens of glass houses, and some, such as Fenton, continue to this day.

References

External links