Antique c1740 George II Multi Spiral Air Twist Wine Glass Folded Conical Foot

A superb early George II English wine glass dating to around 1740, at the very beginning of the great period of English air-twist glass. Tall, beautifully proportioned and remarkably refined, it combines an elegant flared bucket bowl, exceptionally fine multi-spiral air-twist stem, broad conical folded foot and original rough snapped pontil.

Beginning at the top, the bowl is entirely hand blown, with a gently flared bucket or funnel form and a subtly uneven hand-finished lip. That slight irregularity is part of its early manufacture rather than a fault: there is none of the mechanically perfect uniformity associated with later glass. The plain undecorated bowl also allows the remarkable stem to provide the visual focus.

The stem is the outstanding feature. It contains a dense multi-spiral air twist made from numerous tiny filaments of trapped air running almost the full length of the stem. These are not applied white threads: air was deliberately introduced into the hot glass and, while the stem was being drawn out, the glass was twisted so that the air pockets stretched into extraordinarily fine spirals. Aberdeen Museums describes this same technique on a c1745–55 wine glass in its collection, where numerous air filaments are drawn and twisted into a multiple spiral.

The result would have been especially effective in an 18th-century interior. Under candlelight the multitude of air threads catches and reflects points of light as the glass is turned in the hand, making the apparently clear stem shimmer almost like silver wire. It is easy to understand why the air twist became one of the most admired developments in Georgian drinking glass.

At the base is a broad conical foot with clearly visible hand-tooling and an early folded edge. The glassmaker turned the outer edge of the foot back underneath itself, effectively doubling the thickness around its vulnerable perimeter and making it less susceptible to chipping. Folded feet are strongly associated with earlier Georgian drinking glasses and became less usual after the introduction of the 1745 glass excise.

The centre underneath retains its original rough broken or snapped pontil. After the foot had been attached, the glass was held on a pontil rod while the bowl was finished; breaking the completed glass away left this scar. Here it has deliberately not been ground smooth. Together with the folded conical foot, hand-finished rim and early air-twist construction, it is one of the details that gives the glass such convincing early character.

There are excellent institutional comparisons. The British Museum holds a mid-18th-century English wine glass combining an air-twist stem with a folded foot, while the Warwickshire museum collection records a particularly close glass specifically dated c1740, with air-twist stem and folded foot. These museum examples support dating this glass to around 1740 rather than pushing it further into the later air-twist period.

Its primary purpose would have been wine. On a prosperous British table around 1740 this might have been claret, Lisbon wine, Madeira, sherry or sack, and increasingly Portuguese wines. Contemporary household accounts from the 1730s and 1740s show claret particularly prominent alongside sherry/Lisbon, Madeira and other imported wines; port was certainly being consumed, although its later dominance of the Georgian British table was still developing. Brandy or a cordial could certainly have been taken from a glass of this size, but stylistically this is first and foremost an early wine glass rather than a simple spirit dram.

It would have belonged naturally in the household of a prosperous merchant, professional or landed family, or perhaps a good tavern or private club where fashionable drinking glass mattered. The sophisticated stem required considerably more skill than an ordinary plain-stem glass and would have been chosen as much for its appearance as its function.

And glasses such as this were intimately connected with the Georgian culture of the toast. It might have been raised to the health of George II, to family and absent friends, a marriage, a business success, political loyalties or the latest military and naval news. A glass made around 1740 even coincides with the extraordinary public enthusiasm surrounding Admiral Vernon's capture of Porto Bello in November 1739, an event commemorated in large numbers of medals and other objects. 

These glasses should also be understood as individual handmade objects. Georgian buyers certainly did purchase drinking glasses in quantities—even records from 1743–44 list dozens of English wine glasses—but they were individually blown, drawn, twisted, tooled and finished. Even glasses ordered together therefore possess subtle differences in rim, bowl, stem and foot. This example retains those small irregularities throughout, which are part of its appeal and evidence of the glassmaker's hand.

An exceptional early Georgian drinking glass in which almost every feature tells the story of 18th-century English glassmaking: the uneven blown lip, elegant flared bowl, intricate trapped-air stem, conical folded foot and untouched snapped pontil. Nearly three centuries later, the extraordinary multi-spiral stem still performs exactly as intended, coming alive as it turns in the light.