For this auction, our blockbuster piece is an antique Saint Louis with a small menagerie of silhouette canes and accompanying 1845 date cane that quite alters a previous theory. The common assumption so far has been that the first silhouette canes appeared with the Baccarat introduction of the much-fêted Gridel canes in 1847. So, perhaps…
Classic glass paperweights were originally popular between 1845 and 1860 in central France. The French glass factories of Baccarat, Saint-Louis and Clichy produced approximately 25,000 weights during this time, but they quickly lost popularity as handwriting letters became more and more of a novelty. The first-ever World’s Fair in 1851 London showcased glass paperweights; the…
Ayotte Paperweights | L.H. Selman Glass Globally acclaimed for his unbelievably lifelike interpretations of small creatures and birds in their natural habitats, glass artisan Rick Ayotte has spent a lifetime studying and observing nature to create little worlds encased in glass. Beginnings | Rick Ayotte Born in New Hampshire, Ayotte officially began his career at…
