In February we had a Gazette feature on Rosaline, taken from an article in the September 2000 issue of Traditional Home magazine on Carder’s Jade glass titled “The Many Shades of Jade.”  The photo below comes from that article and it seems very appropriate for the approach of spring.

The article leads off with:  “Jade glass has a coy, seductive personality. There is something intriguing in the milky, mysterious look of it. Always translucent but never transparent, jade glass reveals itself slowly. The creamy colors urge you to take a closer look.

What you see is a beautiful bouquet of color, there are two kinds of white – ivory and alabaster, subtle Rosaline pink, citrine yellow, plum, midnight blue, turquoise and green-the original color that first appeared in England about 100 years ago.”

“In glass, color is chemistry”, says collector Tom Dimitroff, who lives in the picturesque town of Corning, New York, and could go on all all day about which chemicals produce which colors. “Carder had a remarkable genius for design and a genius for color formulations period” says Dimitroff. “It was a very happy marriage.”

Unearthing this article has made me think more about jade glass so I’ve gone to the books and have not found very much about jade in particular other than the colors. I did find something in Chapter 4 of the Gardner book Standard Techniques “At the Fire” in the section “Casing or Flashing.” Three layers of glass were sometimes used, as in the Plum Jade color, which has a Dark Amethyst layer cased with Alabaster and then the two layers encased with an outer layer of Amethyst. I now wonder about jades that are not cased.

A total solar eclipse passes over a large part of the United States today, including over Corning, NY.  For those who are in the path of totality, we wish you cloudless skies and a breathtaking experience!