Footed Dish 1885 - 1888

Editor: Here we have a glass Footed Dish, crafted between 1885 and 1888 by the Richards and Hartley Flint Glass Company. Its repetitive pattern almost gives it a bubbly, joyful aesthetic. What stories does this dish hold, beyond its aesthetic appeal? Curator: Well, looking at this object, I see more than just a decorative dish. I see a reflection of class, labor, and consumer culture in the late 19th century. Flint glass production involved intense labor, often exploited, while the finished product was destined for bourgeois homes, intended to signify status and good taste. Who was benefiting from this production and at what cost? Editor: That makes me think about access—who could afford to purchase such items, and what did that say about society at the time? Curator: Exactly. It prompts us to question the societal structures that placed value on such displays of wealth. Consider how the rise of industrial production impacted both the availability of these objects and the lives of the workers creating them. This dish might be pretty, but it is part of a larger story of labor exploitation and capitalist expansion, impacting women, people of color and immigrant communities especially. Editor: So it becomes an object that silently tells a complicated, even troubling story about a specific era. Curator: Precisely. It makes us think about whose labor went into this, and how they were affected by its creation. Art history has to engage with critical social issues. What do you think about the function of decorative items like this in today’s world? Editor: I see a constant tension between our appreciation of its aesthetic, its visual texture, and its deeper contextual meaning, what it really symbolizes when we interrogate its social history. Thanks for that insight. Curator: It's been enlightening for me too, thinking about how this single object represents broader issues of class and labor.