These wine glasses, with their Gothic arches in the so-called Sheaf of Wheat pattern, relate to a decanter also at Bayou Bend (B.91.19). However, distinguished ornamental details, such as the horizontal rings and faceted base of the bowl and particularly the faceted knop on the stem, elevate these glasses to the most expensive "rich cut” or “best cut" category.

Related examples: Wine glasses with similarly faceted medial knops are associated with Bakewell, Page, and Bakewell. One at The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, descended in the family of Frederick Graff. Similar glasses, at The Hermitage, Nashville, Tennessee, are thought to be those ordered by Andrew Jackson from Bakewell, Page, and Bakewell in 1832. Both the Pennsylvania and Hermitage wine glass models differ, however, in that the basic shape of the bowl has straight rather than tapered sides (Palmer 1990). A wine glass with a similar shaped bowl and Gothic ornament but with an unfaceted medial knop is at the Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire (Innes 1976, p. 150, fig. 113).

Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.