Fenton Art Glass Company Cobalt Favrene Vase, Hand-Painted by Angela Meeks. Favrene is made with cobalt blue glass containing pure silver. The silver is coaxed to the surface in a special reheating process and, when sprayed with metallic salts, it develops a silvery-blue iridescence. Angela Meeks was one of the most proficient artisans in the small West Virginia company, painting delicate works for over thirty years up into the late 1990s. Beautiful lilypad image with a small goldfish nearby. Signed on the base. The lack of a logo or other company identifier indicates this piece was made before 1970, and is therefore likely one of her earliest works.
Size: 4 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 7 in.
#3837 .
The Fenton Art Glass Company was a glass manufacturer founded in 1905 by brothers Frank L. Fenton and John W. Fenton. The original factory was in Martins Ferry, Ohio, in 1905, on the site of an older glass factory that had belonged to the former West Virginia Glass Company. At first Fenton painted glass blanks from other glass makers, but started making their own glass when it became more cost effective than buying the materials they needed. They moved across the Ohio River to Williamstown, West Virginia, and built a new factory in 1906. In 1908 John left the company over a business dispute and founded the Millersburg glass company in Millersburg, Ohio, although it only survived for a few years. Frank, from the beginning, was the chief designer and decorator at Fenton, and from 1905 to 1920 the designs made there were heavily influenced by two major glass companies: Tiffany and Steuben. However, a chemist named Jacob Rosenthal who worked alongside Frank developed an array of unique colors, which led them to introduce Carnival Glass. During the Great Depression Fenton shifted to producing practical items like tableware due to materials shortages. However, they continued to experiment with creating new colors, and their cobalt blue iridescent pieces, referred to as Favrene, were some of the most highly sought works, handled only by the most skilled artisans in the company. In 1940 Fenton started selling items in a Hobnail pattern in French Opalescent, Green Opalescent, and Cranberry Opalescent. The Hobnail pattern glass would become the top-selling line for the next sixty years, even spawning pieces made from uranium glass, and allowed the company to expand after the end of World War II. Within the span of one year, however, the top three members of Fenton’s management died suddenly, including Frank, and his son Frank M. Fenton left working as a designer to take up the position of President, with his older brother Wilmer C. “Bill” Fenton as Vice President. In 1970 the company added their logo to the bottom of their “Original Formula” Carnival Glass pieces to distinguish them from their older Carnival Glass works, as collectors were now seeking out unique items in cobalt, amberina, and rich marigold. In 1986 George W. Fenton, Frank M. Fenton’s son, took over as President of the company. Over the years eight Fenton family members worked alongside 100 employees to create one-of-a-kind masterpieces, but with the passing of several members in rapid succession in the early 2000s the company began to fall apart. In 2007 a closure was announced, but the resulting buying frenzy by collectors allowed them to restructure and stay open until 2011, when the fallout from the worldwide Great Recession finally finished them off. However, a small part of the factory remained open as a jewelry making operation, producing handcrafted glass beads and Teardrop earrings. In 2017 Wood County Schools Superintendent John Flint purchased the land and bulldozed the property to make a new school. Since 2018 art glass using the original Fenton mold designs, including the Fenton emblem, continued to be produced at another factory in nearby Ohio, while handcrafted jewelry and hand painted items continued to be offered at the Fenton Art Glass Gift Shop in the nearby village of Boaz.
