Pairpoint Glass Company is an American glass manufacturer based in

Sagamore, Massachusetts Sagamore is a census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Bourne in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 3,623 at the 2010 census. "Sagamore" was one of the words used by northeastern Native Americans to design ...

. It is currently the oldest operating glass company in the United States.John Zientek
"The Revival of Pairpoint, America's Oldest Operating Glass Company,"
Gear Patrol, November 25, 2015.

History

The company was founded by

Deming Jarves Deming Jarves (1790–1869) was a 19th-century American glass manufacturer in Massachusetts. He co-founded the New England Glass Company and founded the Boston & Sandwich Glass Company, renowned for its pressed glass, and the Mount Washing ...

in 1837 in

South Boston, Massachusetts South Boston is a densely populated neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, located south and east of the Fort Point Channel and abutting Dorchester Bay. South Boston, colloquially known as Southie, has undergone several demographic transformati ...

, as the Mount Washington Glass Works."History of Mt. Washington Glass Co.,"
The Antiquarian, 2008.Wolfgang Saxon

''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', April 9, 2005. Jarves had previously founded the

New England Glass Company Libbey, Inc., (formerly Libbey Glass Company and New England Glass Company) is a glass production company headquartered in Toledo, Ohio. It was originally founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts as the ''New England Glass Company'' in 1818'','' before ...

in 1818."Mt. Washington – Pairpoint,"
The House of Brilliant Glass. Accessed June 29, 2016. Mount Washington did not at first have an official name, and until around 1850 was informally known as Russell's Glass House, after Luther Russell, the glasshouse superintendent. The first known use of the Mount Washington name was in the 1857 publication ''History of South Boston''. In 1870, Mount Washington relocated to New Bedford, Massachusetts. That year, the company was briefly renamed W. L. Libbey & Company, before being incorporated as the Mount Washington Glass Works the following year. In 1876, the name was changed slightly, to the Mount Washington Glass Company. From 1876 through 1881, the company produced an extensive line of lighting goods and other

glassware upTypical drinkware The list of glassware includes drinking vessels (drinkware) and tableware used to set a table for eating a meal, general glass items such as vases, and glasses used in the catering industry. It does not include laboratory glas ...

, including glass chimneys, fine blown

cut glass Cut glass or cut-glass is a technique and a style of decorating glass. For some time the style has often been produced by other techniques such as the use of moulding, but the original technique of cutting glass on an abrasive wheel is still u ...

and

pressed glass Pressed glass (or pattern glass)
is a form of

In the 1880s, the company primarily produced

art glass Art glass is a subset of glass art, this latter covering the whole range of art made from glass. Art glass normally refers only to pieces made since the mid-19th century, and typically to those purely made as sculpture or decorative art, with ...

. In 1885, it introduced Burmese art glass, a translucent, heat reactive glass that shades from yellow at the bottom to pink at the top. The company became known for this type of glass, obtaining a British patent for it in 1886, and presenting a number of Burmese pieces to

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previo ...

. In 1880, British silver designer Thomas Pairpoint (1838-1902) resigned his position as head designer at the Meriden Brittania Company and founded the Pairpoint Manufacturing Company, which was established in New Bedford as a silver manufacturer supplying Mount Washington with silver-plated metal mounts for its glass lamps and other products.Danielle Arnet
"Correct identification key to pricing vintage lamp,"
''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...

'', June 15, 2012."The Smart Collector: Pairpoint name no guarantee of high-flying price for ruby swan dish,"
''

Orlando Sentinel The ''Orlando Sentinel'' is the primary newspaper of Orlando, Florida, and the Central Florida region. It was founded in 1876 and is currently owned by Tribune Publishing Company. The ''Orlando Sentinel'' is owned by parent company, '' Tribune P ...

'', March 27, 2011. In 1894, the two companies merged and in 1900 were renamed the Pairpoint Corporation."Pairpoint Manufacturing Co.,"
Internet Antique Gazette. Accessed June 29, 2016.Orva Heissenbuttel
"Pairpoint Glass Company,"
''Rainbow Review Glass Journal'', February 1975. In 1939, the company was reorganized as Gundersen Glass Works, named after master glassblower and new owner Robert Gundersen. After Gundersen's death in 1952, the company became the Gundersen-Pairpoint Glass Works until 1957, when it was renamed a final time to Pairpoint Glass Company. Now under the guidance of Robert Bryden, it ceased operations at its New Bedford plant and relocated briefly to East Wareham, Massachusetts. The company moved overseas in 1958 to leased facilities in

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

, exporting limited quantities of stemware, perfume bottles and paperweights back to the US. Pairpoint returned to the US in 1967, and in 1970 opened a newly built factory in

, near the Cape Cod Canal. The invention of the light bulb and the corresponding rise of the use of electricity was central to the company's success in the late 19th century."Mt. Washington and Pairpoint: American Glass From the Gilded Age to the Roaring Twenties,"

Corning Museum of Glass The Corning Museum of Glass is a museum in Corning, New York in the United States, dedicated to the art, history, and science of glass. It was founded in 1951 by Corning Glass Works and currently has a collection of more than 50,000 glass obje ...

, May 19, 2011. In the early 20th century through the early 1930s, its distinctive glass lampshades gained international popularity. In the second half of the 20th century, Pairpoint went on a decline, when it started producing a less expensive, lower quality product in an attempt to expand its customer base and combat foreign competition. In 2015, Jeffrey Tulman and his brother Gary Tulman acquired Pairpoint and returned the company to its classic high-end designs, reintroducing the revitalized product to collectors and luxury glass buyers.Susan Curtin
"Blown Glass,"
''Cape House'', October 11, 2015, pp. 44-46.

Products

Pairpoint is known for three kinds of glass lampshades, originally produced from the mid-1890s through the mid-1920s: reverse painted landscape shades (where the glass is hand painted on the inside surface so colors appear softly through the glass), blown out reverse painted shades, and ribbed reverse painted shades, mostly with floral designs and landscape scenes.Jean McClelland
"Reverse painted lamps a beautiful, practical art form,"
''

The Herald-Dispatch ''The Herald-Dispatch'' is a daily newspaper that serves Huntington, West Virginia, and neighboring communities in southern Ohio and eastern Kentucky. It is currently owned by HD Media Co. LLC. History ''The Herald-Dispatch'' was founded in 19 ...

'', August 4, 2013. In 1910, the company began using a spherical knop (or "bubble ball") on some of its pieces, a technique involving trapping air bubbles inside a piece of glass in a symmetrical pattern, which can be applied to ice buckets, decanters, glassware, and other pierces. This became a trademark of the company. Pairpoint's reverse painted lamps are generally considered to be the most popular and expensive of such lamps on the antique market. Rare Pairpoint lamps have been sold for six figures (

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

), while more commonly available lamps have sold in the high four figures. The company produces a range of glass pieces, including custom pendants, sconces, chandeliers and accent lighting. Pairpoint also produces barware, candlesticks, bookends, bowls and vases, as well as a line of controlled bubble ball door knobs. Pairpoint products are handmade in the US.

Museum collections and exhibitions

More than 50 Pairpoint silver pieces from 1880 to 1929 are a part of the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum. These include pitchers, goblets and candlesticks. Early Pairpoint pieces are also a part of the permanent collections of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, including silver candlesticks from 1905, a rose glass bowl from 1898, and a glass vase ca. 1886-94; the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; and the New Bedford Museum of Glass. A 2011 exhibition at the

Corning, New York Corning is a city in Steuben County, New York, United States, on the Chemung River. The population was 10,551 at the 2020 census. It is named for Erastus Corning, an Albany financier and railroad executive who was an investor in the company t ...

, was titled ''Mt. Washington and Pairpoint: American Glass From the Gilded Age to the Roaring Twenties''. It told the story of the company and featured over 150 pieces from the 1880s to the 1930s, including art glass, cut glass, kerosene and electric lamps, and decorative tableware. Kenneth Morley Wilson, a renowned historian of glass manufacture in America, compiled a history of the company in ''Mt. Washington and Pairpoint Glass'', in two volumes published in 2005 and 2011 by the Antique Collectors' Club of Woodbridge, England."Glass Expert and Curator Kenneth M. Wilson, 83,"
''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...

'', April 11, 2005.

Milestones

References

External links