The Cape Cod Glass Company operated in Sandwich, Massachusetts, from 1858 to 1882. The firm was founded by Deming Jarves, who had started the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company, and by James D. Lloyd, who had been a color mixer for Boston and Sandwich. The two companies were rivals for the same markets, and they produced very similar glass. This vase closely resembles several pieces that descended in the Lloyd family and are known to be products of the Cape Cod firm. Cut colored and colorless glasses, which were very popular from about 1850 until the 1870s, were much influenced by the European glass that was then being imported. It was more expensive than ordinary cut glass because of the work involved in creating the two-layered blank as well as the cutting. The quality of the cutting on this vase is quite high. Without the similarity to pieces in the Lloyd family, it would be impossible to say if the vase had been made at the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company, the New England Glass Company, the Cape Cod Glass Company, or any of several other firms. The patterns popular at that time were relatively simple, and it is difficult to determine where they were made. The Museum has very few pieces that can be attributed to the Cape Cod firm, and is fortunate to have acquired this one. For more on the Cape Cod Glass Company, see Raymond E. Barlow and Joan E. Kaiser, The Glass Industry in Sandwich, v. 3, Windham, New Hampshire: Barlow-Kaiser Publishing Co., 1987, pp. 100–110; and “The Other Sandwich Company, Cape Cod Glass Company,” Antiques Today, v. 1, no. 1, Winter 1972, pp. 30–34.