Tazza

This object was produced by the James Powell and Sons Glass Company, London. It is a tazza of free-blown glass, with engraved and applied decoration. The bowl and foot are of a pale sea-green, the air-twist stem in a contrasting brighter green.

The Whitefriars Glass Works was purchased by James Powell, a wine merchant in 1834, as additional employment for his three sons, Arthur, Nathaniel, and John Cotton. He transformed the firm into James Powell and Sons Glass Company. Nathaniel’s son Harry (1853-1922), a man of extraordinary talent as a designer, historian and scientist, entered the firm in 1873, and together with his cousin, James Crofts Powell (1847-1914), developed radically new forms, colours and decorative techniques as well as creating special industrial glass for scientific uses.

When the factory closed in 1980, the surviving archive was presented to the Museum of London. During 1989, the overwhelming array of design books, sourcebooks, notebooks, order books, photograph albums were catalogued.