It is rare that a piece of early American cut glass can be ascribed with certainty to a specific factory. Two contemporary documents, one of which discusses Bakewell’s factory and describes a tumbler with an engraved greyhound, and the other that states a tumbler (with an engraved greyhound) was purchased by the writer at the Bakewell factory, confirm the origin of the Bayou Bend piece. To date, six tumblers ornamented with engraved greyhounds are known. Although they vary in the fluted and cut diamond decorations, the tumblers clearly relate to each other and to other pieces attributed to Bakewell. As two of the greyhound tumblers are documented gifts, it is possible that they were not produced in large sets but were intended to be presentation pieces. The iconography of fidelity, the greyhound, and love, the hearts and the altar, further suggests that these tumblers represented tokens of friendship

Related examples: Winterthur (Palmer 1993, no. 60); two at The Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh (Innes 1976, p. 116, fig. 65); PMA (Innes 1976, p. 122, fig. 72,); MMA (acc. no. 1982.216): private collection (Innes 1976, p. 119, fig. 68); an engraved tumbler, presented in 1825 to De Witt Clinton, has similar fine-cut diamond ornament (Innes 1976, p. 132, fig. 84).

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.