Paste in Antique Jewelry: Two Brooches, Two Roles for Glass

What does calling an antique jewel “glass” tell us about its workmanship? A closer reading can connect the material to the construction of particular parts. Two museum descriptions offer a useful comparison.

A historical word for glass

The Corning Museum of Glass records the historical use of paste for imitations of precious stones, while objecting to its technical use for such objects. Its entry says some of that glass had a high lead content; it gives no single composition for everything called paste. Here, the word follows the terminology of the institutional descriptions. Read Corning’s dictionary entry.

Faceting and setting in silver

The V&A’s official shop caption places its faceted glass brooch in Western Europe, 1740–50. It describes colored glass mounted in silver and compares the deep orange glass’s faceting and setting with precious jewelry of that period. V&A object caption.

That correspondence is the craft point. The caption directs attention to how the glass was worked and mounted. Knowing the material is glass still leaves those aspects of the ornament to appreciate. The brief description supplies no account of the maker’s reasons or hours at the bench.

Paste eyes beside a garnet body

Museums Victoria’s record for insect brooch HT 61990 assigns it to Louis Suhard & Company in Adelaide, South Australia, circa 1900–1920. The museum describes an 18-carat-gold brooch with a faceted garnet body, smaller red paste eyes, and articulated front and hind legs. Museums Victoria collection record.

The description maps material onto anatomy: garnet for the body, paste for the eyes. The articulated legs add a construction detail. The record gives no reason for the maker’s choice of paste.

What the two descriptions reveal

The V&A description connects glass with the craft of faceting and setting. The Suhard record connects different materials with different parts of one design. Reading them together shifts attention from a material name to the work done to a component and its role in the ornament.

These two records do not establish a chronology or a complete classification of paste jewelry. They invite a specific question: what is the glass doing in this particular jewel?