About The Project

About The Project

Thursday, November 3, 2016

It's the little things....


This is a broken section of a plate that I picked up when I was in Newark last December. I’ve been saving it for someplace “special” in the panels. Finally last week the piece let me know where to put it! It is going just above my name plate in the lower panel I’m working on now. The piece is about 6 inches by 3.5 inches. This is probably the most spectacular cutting of any piece in the four panels. This is far and away the most intricate and beautiful cutting I’ve seen.

Of course if I were going to use it, I needed to know about it. I had not seen this cutting anywhere and was worried that it might not have been Heisey. Haul out the books, it's research time! Amazingly, I found the cutting in my first reference book from when I first started collecting/researching Heisey. The pattern is called Churchill #890 and dates from 1937 to 1942. The next step was identifying the plate. That took a little more time but I had plenty more clues. Over on the nearly broken off edges is a fan shape. A-ha! Though the upper center shape is not pictured anywhere, the pattern is Queen Ann #1509 (an updated pattern based on the early Empress #1401), made from 1938 to 1957. The giveaway clue turned out to be the very subtle vertical optic thicknesses that go around the plate. I had just been reading about the various “optics” used by Heisey in the October Heisey newsletter. It is a way of adding sparkle/depth/variation to the way light comes through the glass.

There it was – and listed as a feature of this Queen Ann. This must have been a fairly large platter or serving plate.

There are quite a few pieces in these panels that strike me breathless with their grace and beauty.
This piece is at the head of the list.