Our previous series looked at Prelude etch from Viking Glass, a lovely design with center motif of palm branches clasping small flowers. Cambridge Glass’ Diane etch has a center motif of swags that clasp a large flower. These designs remind me of hands holding a cherished plant.
Cambridge Glass made Diane for 25 years, from 1931 to 1956, mostly in crystal and many pieces in colored glass. The colors are not as easy to find as crystal, but look for Willow Blue (light blue), amber, Crown Tuscan (creamy translucent), Heatherbloom (orchid pink lavender), green, Peach-Blo/Dianthus (pink) and yellow. You may see a few pieces with gold encrustation that highlights the etch too.
I’ve only had a few pieces of Diane in stock, which seems odd since Rose Point shows up so often locally. One fun piece is this trindle candle holder with Diane etched on the round base.
Diane shows the heyday of elegant glass when companies marketed crystal for table use; look for dinnerware, stemware, and accessory pieces in a myriad of variations. My elegant glass book from Coe and Coe takes over 4 pages to list the items available; that’s over 300 individual pieces. The explosion of items is partly because Cambridge used several blanks. You’ll see mostly the 3400, 3900 and 3500 (Gadroon) lines for dinnerware plus others including the plain Pristine line.
You can choose among at least 3 different stemware lines and all are lovely. Cambridge issued sherbets, water goblets, wine goblets and tumblers as we see in most elegant patterns. Diane was popular so there are other, less common pieces too, including your choice of 4 cordials, and special glasses designed for brandy or sherry or claret.
We’ll look at the stemware in more detail in our next post, followed by dinnerware, then accessory items and end up with a quick look at 2020 availability and pricing. Please let me know whether you find this format interesting.