Bowl of American Legends

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Image courtesy of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College. Photo by John Be…
Bowl of American Legends
Image courtesy of the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College. Photo by John Bentham. For educational purposes only.
Artist/Maker (American, 1904 – 1963)
Manufacturer
Date1942
MediumEngraved glass
DimensionsOverall: 10 × 9 11/16 in. (25.4 × 24.6 cm)
Credit LineGift of D. Roger Howlett, Class of 1966
Object number2020.11.1
On view
DescriptionThis fine example of twentieth-century American crystal was produced by Steuben Glass, a highly respected manufacturer located in Corning, New York. Founded in 1903, the company was initially known for its colored glassware. However, after being reorganized in 1932, Steuben adopted a new glass recipe which enabled a full spectrum of light, including ultraviolet rays, to pass through its products. The company subsequently became known for its exceptionally clear colorless glass, exemplified by this mold-blown crystal bowl designed by Sidney Waugh. The bowl’s engraved design created by Waugh features a modern aesthetic popular in the 1930s and 1940s, with clean linear forms strongly influenced by Art Deco style. Its decorative scheme presents a particular interpretation of American identity and the idea of the “American Legend” constructed through nineteenth- and twentieth-century folklore, literature and “tall tales.” Seven vignettes featuring celebrated American characters are engraved around the bowl’s rim: from clockwise, Ichabod Crane pursued by the Headless Horseman, from Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow of 1820; Davy Crockett with a bear and an alligator; Pecos Bill riding a mountain lion and carrying a rattlesnake lasso; Paul Bunyan with Babe the Blue Ox; Johnny Appleseed dispensing a bag of seeds and preaching the gospel; Uncle Remus with Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox, from stories published by Joel Chandler Harris between 1880 and 1948; and Rip Van Winkle drinking and playing ninepins with a group of tiny Dutchmen, from the eponymous story of 1819 by Washington Irving. Produced in 1942, Bowl of American Legends is one of a number of objects manufactured by Steuben around this time that exhibits a nationalist theme. Examples of Steuben Glass were often given as gifts to foreign dignitaries by the US government: President Harry S. Truman gave a version of this bowl to Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, in 1951.
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Additional Details

Provenance 2020: Hamilton College (Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art), by gift of D. Roger Howlett.
Markings No markings noted.
Signature Not signed.
Inscribed No inscriptions noted.
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