Bottle

Wistarburgh Glassworks

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This glass dog, or schnapshund, is an interesting example of a traditional German form persisting in late eighteenth-century colonial America. Popular from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, these glass drinking vessels were novelty objects created by glassblowers in the area now known as Germany. The form came to America by way of German glassblowers, many of whom worked for Caspar and Richard Wistar at their Wistarburg Glassworks in Alloway, New Jersey. Caspar Wistar, who immigrated to America in 1717, established a glasshouse in that location in 1738. He employed almost exclusively German glassblowers to make bottles, equipment for scientists and physicians, as well as tablewares, such as sugar bowls and candlesticks. The majority of the wares that can be tentatively attributed to Wistar are made of unrefined bottle glass, often in a variety of colors. This schnapshund is made of green, unrefined bottle glass, in contrast to German schnapshund, which are made of colorless or aqua glass. A further case in point for this being an American and a Wistar product, is that the Metropolitan’s schnapshund has a similar chemical composition to Wistar sugar bowls, according to the chemical analysis. It is also closely related in form and tooling to a documented Wistar schnapshund in the Wyck collection, in Germantown, Pennsylvania, home of Richard Wistar.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art