Imperial Glass Company
Bellaire, Ohio
"Imperial Art Glass" is, without a doubt, the most elegant of the stretch glass lines, not only because of its base colors or shapes, but because of the richness of its stretch effect. This line was introduced in 1916 by Imperial and represents the highest standards by which all stretch glass is compared. Unfortunately, Imperial's Art Glass was commonly called "Jewels" by later collectors and the name has continued to be attached to a lot of stretch glass, whether made by Imperial or another manufacturer.
Practically all the Art Glass was made from rather simple vase and bowl molds and all the pieces were "stuck up" for shaping and iridizing. Stuck up pieces are heat attached to a metal ring and they must be removed by breaking this attachment. This means that the bases of all the pieces had to be ground smooth. Many other pieces of stretch glass made by Imperial were placed into other lines and these pieces will have a normal foot or marie that was placed into a snap for handling.
Most of the Art Glass pieces have the IMPERIAL name within a cross mark. The mark may be ground off the bottom if the base was heavily ground, and, occasionally, the mark will be inside bowls. Some pieces do not have this mark, but their sizes, shapes and iridescence are distinctive of the Art Glass line. On the other hand, many Imperial pieces can have the cross mark, but are not necessarily part of the Art Glass line. These pieces usually have normal Marie bases or other colors.
Imperial's catalog 103G lists the Art Glass line's colors. In this listing, five colors are defined: Pearl Amethyst, Pearl White, Pearl Silver, Pearl Ruby and Pearl Green. Pearl White is a frosty white iridescence applied to crystal glass. Pearl Ruby is a heavy yellow-orange iridescence applied to crystal glass; we would call this a deep marigold today. Unfortunately, the name "ruby" has confused many into thinking that this was a red glass. Pearl Amethyst is a multicolored iridescence applied to a medium purple glass. Pearl Silver is a shiny, silvery iridescence (often with golden overtones) applied to a dark purple glass. Pearl Green is a predominately green-gray iridescence applied to a light green (or ginger ale-colored) glass. These are the only colors "officially" listed in the catalogs.
Other colors have been found, but no Imperial names have been located. Marked and unmarked pieces that use milk glass with what appears as the Pearl Ruby iridescence have been found. There have also been some milk glass pieces with the Blue Ice iridescence applied. Blue Ice is the term used by Imperial in association with their Satin Iridescent Colors (their later line of iridescent ware that we call stretch today). Blue Ice is commonly called "smoke" today. Very rare pieces with what appears to be Pearl Ruby and Pearl Green iridescence have also been seen. To confuse things even more, the #26 and #28 vases appear to be the same vase that is commonly marked "NUART" on the base and these are commonly found with iridescence on emerald green glass. No name has been found to describe this effect.
Upon illustrating the Imperial Art Glass line, I found that numbers from 1 to 88 are used in catalog pages, but several items (numbers) are missing from the pages. It is not know with current research materials whether there are really 88 items in the line or not. At present, only 68 pieces have numbers associated with them. Identification of a piece usually requires careful measurement of the outside width of the base. This can be plus or minus 1/16 inch of the size listed in the drawings, probably due to the differences in the amount of glass ground off during the finishing process. The heights and final shapes of the pieces can also vary considerably.
Vases 1, 2, and 3 have a 2 3/8 inch base and are the smallest vases. Vases 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 23 have 2 3/4 inch bases. Notice that 8 is not listed though a rather common "bulb" vase shape is rather common in this size. This has been included in the illustrations. The #9 "sweet pea" and #11 "violet vase" (what we would call a Jack-in-the-pulpit shape today), and #12 "nasturtium vase" are very difficult to obtain. The next series used a vase mold with a basal rim and an optic, 10-rib plunger. This includes numbers 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21. There is no item 22 identified. Numbers 26 and 28 are tall vases with 10 optic rays but the base was attached to a rod that produced a normal pontil. Item 27 has not been identified. The next size vase has a base of 3 1/8 inch and includes items 29, 30, and 31. The first series of bowls have a base of 2 ½ inch and includes items 25, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, (no 37), 38, and 39. The next series of bowls have a 3 1/6 inch base and includes items 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, and 46.
There is a gap in the listings with no items associated with numbers 47 through 53. The next series of bowls then have 3 7/8 inch bases and includes items 54, 55, 56, 57, 58 and 59. Number 60 is a wide based bowl which I have not been able to measure, but it is listed as 8 inches wide and looks like the base should be about 6 ½ inch wide. Items 62, 63, 64, 65, 66 and 68 (no 67) are small items with bases of 2 ½ inch. Most of these small items are very difficult to obtain and are very desirable. The next series includes a variety of vases with 3 5/8 inch bases, items 70, (no 71), 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77 and 78. The last series of vases have 3 ½ inch bases and can vary considerably in their height. There is no item 85 and 86 identified. Items 87 and 88 are 4 inch and 6 ½ inch wide flower bowls. Since I haven't handled these bowls, their base measurements are not known.
Pearl Amethyst vase with crimped top (#2, bouquet).
Pearl Green vase with crimped top (#83 vase).
Pearl Ruby vase (#5 vase).
Pearl Silver square bowl (#46).
Pearl White bowl with wide flared rim (#76 bowl).
"Marigold on Milk" bowl, cupped (#55 bowl).
"Smoke on Milk" bowl with flared rim (#56 bowl).
PDF line illustration pages of Imperial Art Glass Line
Imperial Glass Company Pages
Imperial #725, #727 & #728, Octagon Lines
Imperial Stretch Plates & Handled Servers
Imperial Stretch Candleholders
Imperial Stretch Compotes & Sherbets
Imperial Miscellaneous (cream & sugars, mugs, pitchers, etc.)
