"The Mary Gregory Myth "
Exhibit Is Featured At The Houston Museum

“The Mary Gregory Myth” is the theme of the current special exhibit at the Houston Museum of Decorative Arts. This display features a generous number of pieces of Mary Gregory-type glass, which is a favorite of collectors.

“As tour guides take visitors through the museum, they explain the misconception about the origin of this glass that was long held by many,” said Amy H. Frierson, the Houston’s director.

“Although the museum’s ample collection of this glass is on permanent display,” Mrs. Frierson noted, “it is usually housed in a corner cupboard.

“Having it out in the open on special shelving, as it is for this exhibit, allows visitors a fuller view of these stunning pieces with their distinctive designs,” Mrs. Frierson added.

Pieces shown include a number of pitchers, vases, perfume bottles, candy jars, cruets and bowls in cranberry, amber, blue, green and clear glass. They feature Victorian-garbed figures engaged in carefree activities such as chasing butterflies, picking flowers or blowing bubbles and painted on the glass in white enamel. Some of the figures have the addition of flesh tones.

The popular story about this glass is that it was decorated by a spinster named Mary Gregory, who worked in the decorating department in the Boston and Sandwich Glass Co. in Sandwich, Mass. While employed there, Mary Gregory was said to have painted a tremendous amount of glassware in white enamel with these charming Victorian figures.

Over the years, however, many researchers investigated this popular conception and ultimately determined that it was not true. A young woman named Mary Gregory did in fact work at Boston and Sandwich from 1880-1884 and in the decorating department of this prestigious firm, but she did not paint this particular type of glass.

So if she didn’t paint it and Boston and Sandwich didn’t produce it, why had it become known as Mary Gregory glass? Many theories emerged to explain the misconception. What has been dubbed the most plausible explanation came from Raymond Barlow and Joan Kaiser, authors of an encyclopedia, “The Glass Industry in Sandwich.”

Barlow and Kaiser said that by 1923, all available Boston and Sandwich glass had been removed from the collectors’ market. To fill the gap some enterprising dealer augmented his inventory with Bohemian glass, which he claimed was a product of Boston and Sandwich. He even attributed its designs to Mary Gregory.

Bohemian glassmakers had long produced wares of unrivaled beauty, and its glassmakers ranked among the finest in the world. The Mary Gregory style remained exclusively Bohemian.

In 1918 Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia united to form Czechoslovakia. The worldwide depression of the 1920s saw the failure of many glass companies, and those that survived turned out a low quality product. There were enough collectors of Mary Gregory glass to keep up a limited production, albeit low quality.

The name Mary Gregory became generic and was finally applied to any form of white enamel decoration on glass.

Potential buyers are advised to do research and to develop a sense for the quality of the glass itself. The best, oldest and most valuable Mary Gregory-type glass is not decorated with children, but with women in Victorian attire, cherubs, oriental figures and teenagers. Only after the glassware became known as “Mary Gregory” did younger children become popular decoration.

The better the glass, the older the item. The best, oldest and most valuable is that which is not decorated with children. Pieces produced in more recent years are easily separated from the early pieces by the quality of the painting. The early decorations were done in stages. Newer pieces are finished in one application of paint.

Anna Safley Houston, the museum’s eccentric, but discerning benefactor, had a special passion for glass. She acquired a substantial amount of Mary Gregory-type in her many years of collecting. Her inventory of these Bohemian pieces was enhanced after her death by a gift of a number of fine examples from the late Mrs. E.F. Chobot of Lookout Mountain, another gift of twenty-three pieces from the estate of Dorah Sterne Rosen of Birmingham and several pieces from both Marilyn Long of Signal Mountain and Mrs. Minerva Duso of Spring City, Tenn.

The special exhibit will be on display through August at the museum at 201 High Street. The museum is open daily. The first guided tour Monday through Friday is at 9 a.m., and the last is at 4 p.m. For weekend hours call (423) 267-7176 or e-mail the museum at houston@chattanooga.net.

The admission fee is $9.00 for non-member adults and $3.50 for children four to 17.