Among the featured items in this year’s auction are exceptional examples of Steuben tableware in the Poussin pattern, executed in black-cased crystal and cut to clear.

While looking back through CSGA resources for information about this striking pattern, we discovered that Poussin was featured in a 1991 Rockwell Museum Collector’s Choice Review. The review described these pieces, produced under the direction of Frederick Carder, as combining the finest traditions of brilliant glass cutting with exceptionally detailed stone-wheel engraving. Their stylized foliate motifs and deeply faceted decoration transformed functional tableware into sophisticated works of art.

The plate and cordial featured in the 1991 review reportedly had an especially interesting provenance. They were said to have been acquired by the famed industrialist Vanderbilt and his family in the 1920s and later became highlights of the Veronica Forgett collection.

Poussin was clearly intended for Steuben’s most affluent clientele. Originally priced at approximately $185 for a set of twelve goblets, this was costly tableware for its day. Carder nevertheless successfully promoted patterns of this type into the 1930s, even as the American enthusiasm for brilliant cut glass was fading.

There is an interesting irony to the story. Carder did not consider cut glass among his favorite techniques, yet the tremendous popularity of cut glass in America at the turn of the century was at least partly responsible for bringing him from England to Corning, New York, in 1903.

This year, you’ll have the opportunity to see (and bid on) examples of this remarkable Poussin tableware at our Dinner Auction.  It’s not often that pieces combining Carder’s design vision, superb craftsmanship, and such an interesting chapter in Steuben history come to auction.

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