A defining object of the Prohibition era and one of the most visually arresting cocktail shakers in the American Art Deco canon, this black glass and chrome cocktail shaker by the Cambridge Glass Company of Cambridge, Ohio, unites the two dominant aesthetics of the 1920s American decorative arts — the sleek severity of modernist form and the knowing defiance of a culture determined to drink regardless of the law — in a single object of exceptional quality and presence.
The body is of square section, tapering upward from a broad base in four gently convex ebony glass panels of exceptional depth and lustre, the black glass — Cambridge's celebrated "Ebony" — pressed and finished to a quality that sets it apart from the commercial production of lesser manufacturers. The form is architectural in character, the four faces meeting at softly defined vertical ribs that catch the light with quiet drama, the whole rising to a narrow shoulder that receives the chrome cap with precise and satisfying fit.
The cap is a tour de force of the American chrome worker's art: a tiered, stepped construction of three progressively narrowing cylindrical sections, each faceted and engine-turned, culminating in a flat-topped knurled finial of jewel-like precision. The overall silhouette of cap and body together — the dark, spreading base resolved by the bright, ascending chrome — is one of complete compositional authority, the visual logic of the Art Deco skyscraper rendered in miniature and pressed into the service of the cocktail.
The Cambridge Glass Company, founded in 1901 and at the height of its powers in the 1920s, was among the most technically accomplished American glass manufacturers of the period, celebrated for the depth and consistency of its coloured glass and the refinement of its pressed and blown forms. The Ebony line, introduced in the early 1920s, was among its most commercially and artistically successful productions, finding a ready market among the sophisticated urban clientele who defined American taste in the Jazz Age. That this shaker was produced in 1925 — at the precise midpoint of Prohibition — gives it a particular historical charge that collectors of American social history and decorative arts alike will appreciate.
In excellent condition throughout, the black glass body without chip or crack, the chrome cap bright and even with the strainer and pour mechanism fully intact.
Maker: Cambridge Glass Company, Cambridge, Ohio Material: Black pressed glass ("Ebony"); chrome cap Dimensions: 12 in. high × 3 in. wide (30.5 × 7.6 cm) Dated: 1925 Condition: Excellent; black glass body perfect, chrome cap bright and even, strainer and pour mechanism fully intact
A defining object of the Prohibition era and one of the most visually arresting cocktail shakers in the American Art Deco canon, this black glass and chrome cocktail shaker by the Cambridge Glass Company of Cambridge, Ohio, unites the two dominant aesthetics of the 1920s American decorative arts — the sleek severity of modernist form and the knowing defiance of a culture determined to drink regardless of the law — in a single object of exceptional quality and presence.
The body is of square section, tapering upward from a broad base in four gently convex ebony glass panels of exceptional depth and lustre, the black glass — Cambridge's celebrated "Ebony" — pressed and finished to a quality that sets it apart from the commercial production of lesser manufacturers. The form is architectural in character, the four faces meeting at softly defined vertical ribs that catch the light with quiet drama, the whole rising to a narrow shoulder that receives the chrome cap with precise and satisfying fit.
The cap is a tour de force of the American chrome worker's art: a tiered, stepped construction of three progressively narrowing cylindrical sections, each faceted and engine-turned, culminating in a flat-topped knurled finial of jewel-like precision. The overall silhouette of cap and body together — the dark, spreading base resolved by the bright, ascending chrome — is one of complete compositional authority, the visual logic of the Art Deco skyscraper rendered in miniature and pressed into the service of the cocktail.
The Cambridge Glass Company, founded in 1901 and at the height of its powers in the 1920s, was among the most technically accomplished American glass manufacturers of the period, celebrated for the depth and consistency of its coloured glass and the refinement of its pressed and blown forms. The Ebony line, introduced in the early 1920s, was among its most commercially and artistically successful productions, finding a ready market among the sophisticated urban clientele who defined American taste in the Jazz Age. That this shaker was produced in 1925 — at the precise midpoint of Prohibition — gives it a particular historical charge that collectors of American social history and decorative arts alike will appreciate.
In excellent condition throughout, the black glass body without chip or crack, the chrome cap bright and even with the strainer and pour mechanism fully intact.
Maker: Cambridge Glass Company, Cambridge, Ohio Material: Black pressed glass ("Ebony"); chrome cap Dimensions: 12 in. high × 3 in. wide (30.5 × 7.6 cm) Dated: 1925 Condition: Excellent; black glass body perfect, chrome cap bright and even, strainer and pour mechanism fully intact
Image 1 of 4
Image 2 of 4
Image 3 of 4
Image 4 of 4
