Multi-colored transparent glass; mosaic technique; acid-etched. Circular turquoise and yellow plate with uneven purple rim, decorated with a red fish and blue water splashes behind it. Acid-etched surface overall.

Steuben made mosaic pieces—consisting solely of bowls and plates—in very limited numbers, and they are quite rare today. Frederick Carder, the firm’s manager and chief designer, was interested in re-creating various ancient Roman methods of glassmaking, one of which was mosaic glass. Johnny Jansen, a gifted glassmaker who was much favored by Carder, is thought to have created most of these objects, which were produced from about 1915 to the early 1920s. They were probably intended for display rather than for use. The mosaic design was created by forming canes of colored glass, cutting them into disks, and assembling the disks into a design and firing it. The heated design was picked up on a rod by Jansen and given its final shape at the furnace. This plate remained in Carder’s own collection until the early 1950s, when he gave it to Frank W. Preston, a scientist and a consultant for Corning Glass Works on various projects following World War II. Preston, who enjoyed his conversations with Carder, was very pleased with the gift. His wife, Jane, bequeathed the plate to the Museum in 2009. Published in Thomas P. Dimitroff, Frederick Carder and Steuben Glass: American Classics, Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing, 1998, p. 196, fig. 8.54.