Artist/Maker

Amelung, John Frederick

Place Made

Date Made

1792

Medium

non lead glass

Dimensions

HOA: 10 3/4; DIA: 4 5/8

Accession Number

G-105

Description

Non lead glass goblet; floral design etched on goblet and lid, with etched inscription on goblet.

History

It is believed that this large crystal covered goblet, or pokal, was presented to Frederick William Marshall, the Moravian administrator of Wachovia, by his daughter and granddaughter. Aennel von Marshall and Johanna Elizabeth von Schweintz traveled overland from Pennsylvania to Salem in 1792, and if they took the usual route, they would have passed through Frederick County, Maryland. (RAES)

Artist Biography

ARTIST: John Frederick Amelung, a native of Bremen, Germany, established the New Bremen Glass Manufactory in Frederick County in 1784 and operated it until 1795. He is the only eighteenth-century American glass manufacturer whose products can be identified. In 1785 he advertised in the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser that he made “all kinds of Glass-Wares, viz. Window-Glass, from the lowest to the finest sorts, white and green Bottles, Wine and other Drinking-Glasses, finished compleat.” On July 11, 1787, the Virginia Gazette and Winchester Advertiser advertised Amelung’s “Gallon Bottles, half ditto, quart ditto, pint ditto, and pocket ditto, assorted in hogsheads and tierces [for shipping]… window glass, 8 by 10, and 7 by 9, in boxes; glass tumblers, from a pint to a half gill, in barrels, assorted..” He is known to have presented George Washington with two goblets. Of him the City Gazette of Charleston wrote that he succeeded “beyond all hopes and expectations… with every species of glass.” (RAES)

Credit Line

Wachovia Historical Society Collection