Friday, May 27, 2011

Gail Bardham at the Rakow Library has a question.

Our museum is looking for information on the Carder glass slipper, #6486, which Marshall Ketchum calls “table decoration”, and is in the shape of a slipper or shoe.

See line drawing at http://cardersteubenclub.org/shapes/item-view.cfm?RecordID=21633&category=Shape%20Index drawing

If anyone has additional information to what is below, please let me know. It is in chronological format, based on information at The Corning Museum of Glass.

Carder, Frederick. [Blueprint and catalog line drawings]. ( Rakow Library: Carder Archives)

[There are three pages with this item,

(1) original line drawings, with the initials B.M. (Boris Manikowski?) in the lower right hand corner

The only information is “Slippers, crystal, $25.00 pair)

(2) original drawing on blueprint paper

“Crystal Slippers” 25.00 pair. There is an annotation in red “100.00 pair for Mr. ???Kay wholesale” which has been struck out. There is also “Changed back to 25.00 pair wholesale 5/18/1934.”

(3) copy of the original drawing on blueprint paper

There are no dates on any of these pages for this item. Preceding and subsequent pages provide dates in the 1926-1927 time period, but we cannot date the Item based on the catalog line drawings.

In January 1967, an unnamed individual, possibly Paul Perrot, then director of the Corning Museum of Glass, had conversations with Robert Leavy, pertaining to the “Steuben slipper made for Gloria Swanson”. Leavy was hired by Carder and worked until about 1970, possibly responsible for production scheduling, and/or the Steuben comptroller, or manager of Steuben, from ca. 1918-mid 1960’s. The notes from the conversations were typed up and dated 1/10/67. {There are copies of these two pages at the Rakow Library: Steuben pre 1933 Archives]

According to his [Leavy’s] recollection, the slipper was produced around 1923 and used for her film “A Kiss for Cinderella”. The notes read”: One of Miss Swanson’s slippers was sent to Corning. A plaster cast was made by Frederick Carder and from this an iron mold was made. A gather was blown into the mold and the heel was added separately. The final product was shipped to Miss Swanson, but was too narrow for her to be able to try it. The original slipper was then tried by Miss Jenny Hart of Corning, on whom it fitted well. Through the assistance of Miss Hart another glass slipper was produced which was wider at the top and this was ground and polished until it fit her foot. The result was shipped to Gloria Swanson who apparently wore it for one sequence, did not walk on it, only extended her leg before the camera. One slipper was apparently kept by Steuben Glass and was transferred to New York City at the time the Vycor building was vacated by Steuben. He has no further recollections.

Mr. Perrot wrote to Gloria Swanson on January 27, 1967, and received a response:

Dear Mr. Perrot: I am so glad that you have located further information on the glass slipper. Surely someone at Paramount must be able to advise you whether a picture was made by that name or a picture which had a Cinderella Sequence. My shoe size was 2A and I believe I was the only one at Paramount with that size, so the story about the shoe being copied from one of mine is entirely possible.

The Rakow Library staff has just researched the title “A Kiss for Cinderella”. It was a silent movie that starred Betty Bronson, and a December 1925 Paramount release produced by Players-Lasky, Gloria Swanson had nothing to do with the production and was not in the cast. It was based on a play, A Kiss for Cinderella, by J.M. Barrie, which opened on Broadway in December 1916 (starring Maude Adams) and ran through May 1917. It was revived in March 1942 (starring Louise Raines). No Gloria Swanson in either. The Rakow Library has just acquired a movie “The Glass Slipper”, a 1955 production featuring Leslie Caron. We have been told that it includes a Carder Steuben slipper, but we have not viewed the film yet.

We do know that the shoe appears in the line drawings in Gardner’s book as Steuben number 6486 (p. 236) and on page 91, illustration 141. Gardner wrote that according to Carder,” the original pair was used in a Kiss for Cinderella, but this has been impossible to verify.” The object information in the Registrar’s office for one of the glass slippers, accession number 66.4.74, is as follows : “ According to material in CMG’s Carder files, the slippers were a special item ordered by the Players-Lasky Corporation of New York City in 1925 to publicize a movie version of Cinderella featuring Gloria Swanson and they were modeled after her slipper. Supposedly CMG or Steuben had Miss Swanson’s original fabric slipper until the flood. 3 to 6 pairs were made, to be displayed in theatre lobbies, but it is not certain that the movie was actually made. CMG has three examples, accession number 66.4.74 which has a Steuben trademark and was apparently sold to Players-Lasky since it came back to CMG as a movie relic; 75.4.166 which Carder had given to the Corning Public Library along with a group of his glass which eventually was given to CMG in 1975; and a third one, not accessioned at present, which came to CMG from Steuben along with a group of other items in 1975. Robert Rockwell has one which was given to him by Frederick Carder in the 1950’s. It is not known how many were made.”

Thank you for any help you can provide. We are anxious to know if others have the slipper in their Carder collections!

Gail Bardhan
Reference & Research Librarian
The Corning Museum of Glass
Five Museum Way
Corning, NY 14830
Telephone 607-438-5315
Email bardhangp@cmog.org

www.cardersteubenclub.org

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2011 Carder Steuben Club annual Symposium will be held at The Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY from September 15-17, 2011.