New photography by Shannon Ruff captured with a digital camera-2006.

Pittsburgh Salt

Manufacturer Stourbridge Flint Glass Works of J. Robinson & Son

CultureAmerican

Dateca. 1830-1834

MediumLead glass | Pressed glass

DimensionsOverall: 1 1/2 x 1 7/8 in. (3.8 x 4.8 cm)

InscribedIt is inscribed on the stern in raised letters: "J. ROBINSON & SON / PITTSBURGH"

Credit LineMuseum purchase with Funds Donated by The Chrysler Museum Glass Club

Object number93.4.2

On View

Chrysler Museum of Art, Gallery 116-3, Case 19

DescriptionThis olive-yellow (or citron) lacy salt dish, of lead-formula glass, is pressed in the shape of a sidewheel steamboat. It has a plain foot, anchor on bottom. Neal pattern BT1a, color unlisted.

Label TextSteamboat-Shaped Salt Dish In Olive Yellow Stourbridge Flint Glass Works of J. Robinson & Son, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, ca. 1830-1834 Pressed lead-formula glass Mark in raised letters on the stern: J. ROBINSON & SON / PITTSBURGH Museum Purchase with funds donated by The Chrysler Museum Glass Associates 93.4.2 Olive-yellow is an extremely unusual color in early American pressed glass. Indeed, this is the only known example in that color from this particular salt dish mold. Most of the salts produced in this mold were colorless, and a few examples in blue are known. The Robinson salts were probably inspired by the Boston & Sandwich Glass Co.'s LaFayette steamboat salts, which had been made a few years earlier to commemorate LaFayette's 1824-25 visit to the United States. (LaFayette had entered New York harbor with considerable fanfare on the steamboat Chancellor Livingston.) It is not surprising that the Pittsburgh firm, who made no reference to LaFayette on their salts, should have chosen a steamboat as a novelty form, for the steamboat, an American invention, had recently revolutionized travel on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, handily connecting Pittsburgh with New Orleans some 2,000 miles distant. Steamboat salts were symbols of trade and progress that bore their maker's name in the marketplace at a time when glass pressing was still in its infancy Edited By: GLYExhibition History"Treasures for the Community: The Chrysler Collects, 1989-1996," October 25,1996 - March 2, 1997 Published ReferencesL.W. & D.B. Neal, _Pressed Glass Salt Dishes of the Lacy Period, 1825-1850_, (Philadelphia: Published by the authors, 1962), 20, No. BT1a.