Pairpoint Glass Company is an American glass manufacturer based in

Sagamore, Massachusetts , Sigma = Tristan Chick Sagamore is a census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Bourne, Massachusetts, Bourne in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 3,623 at ...

. 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 in 1837 in

South Boston, Massachusetts South Boston (colloquially known as Southie) is a densely populated neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States, located south and east of the Fort Point Channel and abutting Dorchester Bay (Boston Harbor), Dorchester Bay. It has under ...

, as the Mount Washington Glass Works."History of Mt. Washington Glass Co.," The Antiquarian, 2008. 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 1818 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as the ''New England Glass Company,'' before rel ...

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 New Bedford is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. It is located on the Acushnet River in what is known as the South Coast region. At the 2020 census, New Bedford had a population of 101,079, making it the state's ninth-l ...

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

, 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 Molding (process), moulding, but the original technique of cutting glass on an abrasiv ...

and

pressed glass Pressed glass (or pattern glass)
is a form of glass made by pressing molten glass into a Mol ...

ware. In the 1880s, the company primarily produced art glass. 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 Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...

. 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 an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...

'', 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, in the United States. It was founded in 1876 and is currently owned by Tribune Publishing Company. The ''Orlando Sentinel'' is owned by pare ...

'', 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 Wareham ( ) is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 census, the town had a population of 23,303. Wareham is in the southern outskirts of Greater Boston, and is a part of the South Coast region of Massachusetts ...

. The company moved overseas in 1958 to leased facilities in

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

, 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 Cape Cod Canal is an artificial waterway in Massachusetts connecting Cape Cod Bay in the north to Buzzards Bay in the south, and is part of the Intracoastal Waterway, Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. The approximately canal traverses the nec ...

. 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 (city), New York, Corning, New York, United States, dedicated to the art, history, and science of glass. It was founded in 1951 by Corning Incorporated, Corning Glass Works and currently has a ...

, 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 non-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. It currently publishes Tuesdays-Saturdays, wit ...

'', 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: $; currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it int ...

), 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 The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

. 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, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, 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 th ...

, 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 Woodbridge may refer to: Places Australia *Woodbridge, Western Australia formerly called ''West Midland'' *Woodbridge, Tasmania Canada *Woodbridge, Ontario England *Woodbridge, Suffolk, the location of **Woodbridge (UK Parliament constituency ...

, England."Glass Expert and Curator Kenneth M. Wilson, 83,"
''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'', April 11, 2005.

Milestones

References

External links