Webmaster’s Selection

This is the champagne for stemware set 7725. It is engraved in the Teague T-24 Riviera pattern. Shape 7725 isn’t shown in the Gardner book but the Rakow Library archives has full size drawings of some of the pieces of that set. This piece fits the dimensions for the champagne quite well.

Who is Teague?
“Undoubtedly, the huge Corning Glass Works’ factory complex with its lowering and smoking chimneys and its machines symbolized with immediacy mechanization’s threat as perceived by Carder. Not only had this corporate giant gotten control of his Steuben, but it and Arthur A. Houghton, Jer. were launching Steuben on the very design course he hated, that of contemporary, modernist forms including those that looked machine made-even when they were not.

As part of the new direction for Steuben, Walter Dorwin Teague, an acclaimed industrial designer, was hired to design for Steuben in 1932. He was given three goals; design a modern tableware series, enhance the line of architectural products, and improve Corning’s Pyrex designs. Time magazine of March 5, 1934, described Teague as ‘an apostle of functionalism in design. Mr Teague abhors in manner as well as theory esoteric aspects of art.’ … In 1932 Carder found himself working and designing along side this man who embodied a design philosophy that was anathema to him.” pp 59-670 of Frederick Carder and Steuben Glass by Thomas P. Dimitroff.

“Many of the cut and engraved patterns in the 1932 catalog were designed by Walter Dorwin Teague, an industrial designer who worked briefly for Steuben around that time. His cut patterns, as shown by the ‘Empire’ pattern, were much more attenuated and small-scale. Most of Teague’s patterns have numbers, rather than names. None of these cut patterns turns up very often and it seems likely that they were not made in large quantities.” p. 162