Sauce Dish 1870 - 1890

Curator: Take a look at this vibrant "Sauce Dish," crafted from glass, likely sometime between 1870 and 1890, and attributed to Adams and Company. Editor: Well, it certainly is… green. A very striking, almost acidic, green. The color, combined with those little bubble-like protrusions all over the surface, makes it seem almost otherworldly. Curator: That vibrant hue is no accident. The piece likely contains uranium, added to the glass mixture to create this effect. Such colored glassware, commonly called "vaseline glass", enjoyed a vogue at the turn of the century. But let's consider how that repetitive bubble pattern plays across the form of the dish, creating dynamic textural contrasts... Editor: It makes me think of poison apples and fairytales, where tempting appearances mask hidden dangers. This specific color, the period in which it was made, the likely patrons that used it, all carry particular cultural resonances—a mixture of newfound industrial wealth, conspicuous consumption, and anxieties of poisoning and sanitation. Curator: Indeed. Now, consider the geometry at play: the perfect regularity of each protrusion balanced by the organic, slightly undulating curves of the bowl itself. It's a fascinating dialectic between rigid structure and implied movement. Editor: Absolutely. The symmetry itself speaks to a desire for control, or even an obsession with order typical of the late Victorian period. Even a common "sauce dish" could become an expression of those social obsessions with cleanliness and exactness, in an increasingly industrialised world. Curator: I find your reading fascinating. For me, the primary narrative emerges from its compositional tension, the balance achieved between ornamentation and function, form and color. Editor: Ultimately, whether we see geometrical tension or dark symbolic resonance, the object testifies to a particular cultural and aesthetic sensibility. Curator: A sensibility brought to vivid life through careful manipulation of form. Editor: Exactly. One we continue to reimagine with each glance.