Tea at Trianon: A Brief History of Depression Glass

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, September 21, 2021

A Brief History of Depression Glass

From Apartment Therapy:

As the pandemic taught many people firsthand, little inexpensive indulgences can help to keep morale up, and that’s exactly the role Depression Glass played almost a century ago. Pieces came in a riot of hues, including pink, amber, jadeite (Martha Stewart’s favorite), royal ruby, and even uranium green. Color not only disguised the lesser quality of the glass, but it also provided a little bit of extra cheer. “Color was very important in Depression Glass because those were such dark days,” Dixie Davis, the president of the Arizona Depression Glass Club, told The Arizona Republic in 1986. “L.E. Smith made black glass. But my mother never let dark colors in our house. She thought color perked us up.”
Colored dishware may have also helped to make plain, meager meals look more appetizing. With economic strife often comes lackluster dishes, but even beans and bread looked almost restaurant-worthy on pink glass plates. “In the present era, with glass so pronounced a vogue, it is not difficult for the homemaker to have the dining table as refreshing in appearance as in substance,” the Lincoln Journal Star reported in 1931. “Color of glass serving dishes can lend zest to otherwise plain viands and aid in making them appeal to the appetite.” (Read more.)