Another Text Description

from Ray and Lee Grover, Art Glass Nouveau, p142 and l44

Acid Cutback, or cameo type glass, normally is made of a minimum of two layers of contrasting colored glass with the darker color most frequently being the outer layer. After the outer layer of darker glass is cut away, except for the design which has been protected from erosion by acid resisting coating, the design is left in high relief against the lighter colored under-layer of glass. This design is then worked upon by the artist, refining the decoration to a finished picture in high relief. Most of this type of work turned out at Steuben consisted of two-layer glass, although one occasionally runs across a single-layered example in camphor color. It should not be too difficult to acquire an example of acid cutback work in view of the fact that close to two thousand acid cutbacks were made, many to be used as lamp bases. While only six patterns are shown there were reputedly several hundred different decorations used. The angular, geometric style is one of the clues to an unmarked piece of Steuben origin, and there are not too many different shapes, undoubtedly resulting from the fact that the shape was secondary to the pattern in the creation of acid cutback work.