Related file: For the "Star Rosette" pattern please see the Hawkes 7 file
After having been hidden for more than half a century behind the mask of an assigned name, the true (catalog) name for Hawkes's patent no. 18,267 is now known, thanks to the publication of a [HAWKES PHOTOGRAPHIC FOLIO (c1897)] in 2003 (note 1). This pattern's mask was the assigned name, "Old-Fashioned Hobnail". Although Dorothy Daniel gave the pattern this name in 1950, not all reseachers have gone along with her suggestion. The Pearsons, for example, avoided it. They, in fact, gave the pattern no name at all (Pearson and Pearson 1965, p. 47)! Others, from Revi to Spillman, have used the name "Old-Fashioned Hobnail", often without clearly indicating that this is not the official name of the pattern.
A critical point in the history of the pattern's name occurred in 1979 when Sinclaire and Spillman published extracts from a "catalog" (actually, a folio of photographs) then in the possession of Mrs. Penrose Hawkes. By 1997 this collection had passed to "the Museum library" according to the second edition of Sinclaire and Spillman's book (1997, p. 61). This collection is apparently the one that was published, in a more complete form, by the American Cut Glass Association in 2003, referred to above, which is the second of two such photographic fiolios published by the ACGA, confusingly with identical titles: "Grand Prize Paris Exposition 1889", hence the use of square brackets in this GUIDE.
Fortunately, this most recent representation provides the original, numbered plates, with little or no reduction in size. In the Sinclaire and Spillman book (both editions) the photographic plates are reduced in size and are severely cropped, with the result that plate numbers are eliminated, and the labels on individual items are often illegible. Even more important, for our purpose, is the fact that Spillman -- who wrote the Hawkes chapter in the Sinclaire (Farrar) and Spillman book -- apparently was limited to publishing only one illustration of cologne bottles. She selected plate no. 917. Had she chosen plate no. 915, the identity of patent no. 18,267 would have been revealed because this plate contains a globe cologne cut in Grecian & Hobnail, a pattern that matches the patent's design exactly.
A comparison of the pattern lists and illustrations in the two editions of the Sinclaire (Farrar) and Spillman book with lists and illustrations in the 2003 PHOTOGRAPHIC FOLIO has convinced the writer that plate no. 915 was most likely available in 1979. Whether the pattern on the cologne was not recognized, or whether it was simply overlooked, we will probably never know. We only know that it has taken an additional 25 years for us to identify positively the Grecian & Hobnail pattern as patent no. 18,267. Happily, we can now throw away that "Old-Fashioned Hobnail" mask! Dorothy Daniel would undoubtedly be pleased.
Celery tray cut in Hawkes's patented Grecian & Hobnail pattern of 1888 (patent no. 18,267) cut on shape no. 598. Formerly known as "Old Fashioned Hobnail". L = 11.5" (29.2 cm). Sold at an eBay auction for $270 in 2000 (Image: Internet).
One now naturally seeks, with increased optimism, the Grecian & Hobnail pattern's "sister" pattern, patent no. 18,268, which was patented on the same day as Grecian & Hobnail. Revi gave the name "Star Rosette" to this pattern, using terms that appear in the patent's specification (Revi 1965, p. 180). The two patents also, of course, have an "older sister" -- Hawkes' Grecian pattern -- which was patented a year earlier as no. 17,837. All three of these patterns were sent to the 1889 Universal Exposition (Paris) if the hypothesis that is proposed in the Hawkes 7 file for the "Star Rosette" pattern is correct.
NOTE:
1. [HAWKES PHOTOGRAPHIC FOLIO II (c1897)] catalog. ACGA, 2003, lii + 247 pp. Earlier, the ACGA published the following catalog: [HAWKES PHOTOGRAPHIC FOLIO I (c1902)]. ACGA, 1999, vii + 220 pp.
Updated 1 May 2007