The classic elegance of cut crystal glass

At a recent auction, I found an odd job lot of crystal cocktail, wine, rock, port, and champagne glasses. I liked the cocktail as well as the rock glasses and decided to bid on them. My bid succeeded and I acquired 53 vintage cut crystal glasses. Most of the port and champagne glasses were no longer in the set, but there were 22 modest sized wine glasses. I assumed they must have been for white wine due to their size but the absence of another size for red wine got me thinking.

What if there were only one size wine glass for serving both red and white in the set? When did the fashion to have different sized glasses for different wines start? I am naturally curious and enjoy finding answers to my questions. The big search started yielding frustratingly little information that might cast light on my question. I could find the history of wine glasses but not a clear indication of when the fashion of using different sized wine glasses for red and white wine began.  

I did learn that in England, wine glasses started out small due to the huge tax on glass that existed from the 1700’s to the mid 1800’s. After the glass tax was abolished in 1845, the size of wine glasses increased. It is estimated that a Georgian wine glass from the 1700’s is almost seven times smaller than its successor today.

In the early 1700s, guests did not keep their wine glasses with them. A footman or valet would serve it, fill it up and take it away again when it was empty. Footmen and valets must have been very busy over the course of a dinner. 

With no clear indication of when the fashion to use different measures of glasses for red and white wine commenced, I decided to explore early paintings of meals to determine how many different glasses might typically feature during a meal.

Painting of the meal with Tsar Peter the Great by Gerard Wigmana, 1697 - Source, wikipedia.org

In Gerard Wigmana's 1697 painting of Mayor Saco van Aitzema of Dokkum and his wife, offering Tsar Peter the Great a meal in Amsterdam, there are no wineglasses or wine on the table and the diners are served wine by a footman.

Detail of Jean-François de Troy's, A Hunting Meal, 1737 - Source, commons.wikimedia.org 

In Jean-François de Troy's painting, A Hunting Meal, 1737 the diners are served wine by a footman and with no glasses present on the table. The paintings of dinner occasions in the 1600 and 1700’s clearly revealed an absence of glasses on the table with one size wine glass used when serving wine. 

The Luncheon by Gustave Caillebotte, 1876 - Source, wikiart.org 

Later paintings depict the presence of two or three glasses per setting, one for water, one for wine and one, for what I assume, was a dessert wine.  In his 1876 painting, The Luncheon, Gustave Caillebotte celebrates the crystal glass and wine decanters on the table with light reflecting off it on the dark table. We can see there is white and red wine in decanters  on the table with two glasses per setting, possibly for a claret and a dessert wine.

Dinner at Haddo House, Alfred Edward Emslie, 1884 - Source, commons.wikimedia.org

In the painting, Dinner at Haddo House, by Alfred Edward Emslie, dated 1884, one can see no wine bottles on the table but two glasses per setting. I assume one for claret and one for dessert wine. In the painting The Dinner Party by Jules-Alexandre Grun, 1911 one can see three glasses per setting. Two clear glasses and one red Bohemian wine glass.

The Dinner Party, Jules-Alexander Grun, 1911 - Source, wikiart.org

I find the smaller wine glasses to have an elegant presence on the table. Perhaps it was the practice to serve either white or red wine in the same measure of glass. That would explain why there are nearly twice as many of the same sized wine glasses in the set that I bought. 

A cut Crystal cocktail glass

I am tempted to start using these glasses for the more formal table settings at Towerwater. Adding a sense of elegance, the smaller glasses bring to the table setting.