Aphrodite

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Object Name: 
Plaque and Wooden Case
Title: 
Aphrodite
Maker(s): 
Place Made: 
England, Wordsley
Accession Number: 
93.2.1
Dimensions: 
Overall H: 3.5 cm, Diam (max): 38.7 cm
Location: 
On Display
Date: 
about 1906
Credit Line: 
Gift of Leo, Ruth, Alan Kaplan and Susan Kaplan Jacobson
Primary Description: 
Opaque white (opal) over colorless on transparent deep red glass; blown, cased (twice), acid-dipped, carved, ground, and polished. Plaque: circular. Rim rounded; side tapers to narrow, flat base defined by shallow groove. Decorated with a figured scene showing, at center, the goddess Aphrodite who, according to Greek mythology, was born by rising naked from the sea, then rode to land on a scallop shell. She is surrounded by attendants. Eros flies behind her brandishing a bow and arrow. The figures in front of her are cupids riding on dolphins, those on our left are a sea nymph and a hippocamp (a mythical creature with the head and forequarters of a horse and the tail of a dolphin), and those on our right are another sea nymph and a triton. Behind the goddess's shell is a second triton blowing on a conch-shell. (Tritons are demigods with the head and torso of a man and a fish's tail.)

More Info

Department: 
Modern
Provenance: 
Northwood, Kenneth, Former Collection
Rakow Estate, Juliette K. (Mrs. Leonard S.) (d. 1992), Former Collection
Rakow, Leonard S., Former Collection
Kaplan, Ruth, Source
1993-04-22
Kaplan, Alan, Source
1993-04-22
Jacobson, Susan Kaplan, Source
1993-04-22
Kaplan, Leo (d. 2013), Source
1993-04-22
Color: 
white
colorless
deep red
Technique: 
glassblowing
acid-etching
carving
grinding
polishing
Material: 
glass
wood
Copyright: 
© John Northwood II

Exhibitions (1)

Cameo Glass: Masterpieces from 2000 Years of Glassmaking
Venue(s)
Corning Museum of Glass 1982-05-01 through 1982-10-31
Cameo glass, one of the most costly and difficult decorating techniques since first century B.C., is documented and illustrated in this catalog. Included are examples from Rome, Islam, and China, as well as English 19th-century masterpieces by John Northwood and George Woodall among others. For the purposes of this catalog, the term “cameo glass” is used to refer to cased glass objects with two or more differently colored layers. The outer layer is usually an opaque or opalescent white, and the outer layer or layers have been carved in to leave the decoration standing in relief against a body of contrasting color. Shading is produced by thinning down the carved layer; highlights are created where the glass is left thickest. Both this catalog, and the exhibition for which it was created, documents the 2000-year cameo glass tradition.

Publications (8)

John Northwood II and His Broken Masterpiece (The Blackcountryman) (2012) illustrated, p. 72, fig. 2; BIB# AI87643
20th century British glass (2009) illustrated, p. 73, pl. 143; BIB# 110658
Legends in Glass: Thomas and George Woodall and the Art of Cameo Glass (2000) illustrated, p. 5; BIB# 75070
Recent Important Acquisitions, 36 (1994) illustrated, pp. 116-117, #28; BIB# AI33896
English Cameo Glass in The Corning Museum of Glass (1994) illustrated, pp. 56-57, 62, fig. 52; BIB# 35913
The Corning Museum of Glass Annual Report 1993 (1994) p. 1, ill.; BIB# AI95182
The Corning Museum of Glass Annual Report 1992 (1993) pp. 1, 6; BIB# AI96377
Cameo Glass: Masterpieces from 2000 Years of Glassmaking (1982) illustrated, pp. 63, 110, #43; BIB# 30609