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The Lovely Tale of Hobnail

Though wildly popular during the 1900s, the all-over studded design of hobnail glass is fresh, contemporary and almost edgy for 2010 eyes.  Hobnail in white milk glass combines delicate ornate details with a modern look arising from its symmetrical design and all-white color scheme. Hobnail is named for the studs that line the bottom of sports shoes - evidence that inspiration may be found anywhere!

 

 

Although earlier hobnail styles had been produced in the late 1800s and the early 1900s, the birth of hobnail as a popular glass pattern is generally attributed to the Fenton Art Glass Company and a perfume bottle that it produced for the Allan B. Wrisely Company in the late 1930s.  Housed in a beaded hobnail glass vessel, the perfume flew off store shelves.  Given this remarkable success, Fenton Art Glass Company continued to produce glassware in the hobnail pattern.  Hobnail, particularly in white milk glass, remained Fenton's bread and butter throughout the twentieth century.

 

 

The Odette in Crisp White is Bluebird Candy Dish Co.'s favorite candy dish that combines the studded hobnail pattern with white milk glass.  The Odette is also available in Emerald Green and Crystal.

 

 

 Milk Glass: Like Frosting on a Wedding Cake

Popularized by the French during the fin de siècle, milk glass is an opaque glass often white in color and frosted with decorative beaded designs.  The fin de siècle, which means "end of century" in French, occurred at the end of the 19th century and cloaked France in a climate of sophistication, escapism, decadance, cultural vibrance and a combination of anticipation and despair about the impending turn of the century.  From this period, demand for milk glass erupted, though the glass production technique started in Venice in the 16th century. The fashionable french clamored for opulent milk glass lamps, decadent milk glass vases, detailed milk glass dinnerware and exquisite milk glass costume jewelry. 

 Creative Engagement Gift Example or can be a Unique Holiday Gift

The popularity of milk glass and its accompanying beaded, highly stylized design ebbed and flowed after the fin de siècle, peaking during the late 19th century Gilded Age in the United States, waning during the Depression erra and into the 1940s and 1950s, and losing its luster thereafter as design styles evolved.  Today, the popularity of milk glass is surging once again as the style-minded are reintroduced to the delicate, beaded detailing that invokes images of wedding cakes and the sophistication of the fin de siècle.