Botanic Knowlege

from Frederick Carder: Portrait of a Glassmaker by Paul V. Gardner, p.28

Most of Carder’s engraved patterns featured floral and foliate motifs in clusters, festoons, and sprays. Although he used a few favorite buds and blossoms over and over, he bragged that he could “draw dozens of flowers” from memory and varied his designs at will from this floral memory banks. His botanical knowledge was a combination of his art school training and a life-long love of flowers which he enjoyed firsthand in his well-tended garden. As with his etched and cut designs, the pattern names Alpine, La France, Crest, and Strawberry mansion indicated the diversity of the more than 300 designs listed in salesmen’s catalogs and factory records.