Definition
American Brilliant Cut Glass, commonly abbreviated ABCG, was a style of glass making using leaded glass with heavily engraved cuts to create sparkling presentations. Although the style has continued nearly uninterrupted down to the present, period ABCG glass is generally regarded as having been made between c. 1876-1914.
History
Popular accounts of ABCG often begin with the Centennial Exposition of 1876 where impressive pieces of cut glass were displayed, but to trace its origins more carefully, one has to go back to developments which occurred a few decades earlier with wheel cut glass.
Makers (Selected)
J. D. Bergen Company
Empire Cut Glass Company
H. C. Fry Glass Company
T. G. Hawkes and Company
J. Hoare and Sons
Irving Cut Glass Company, Inc.
Libbey Glass Company
Liberty Cut Glass Company
Pairpoint Corporation
F. X. Parsche and Sons Company
Quaker City Cut Glass Company
Identification
Famous Collectors or Collections
Bill and Louise Boggess
Martha Louise Swann
Corning Museum of Glass
References
Boggess, Bill and Louise, Identifying American Brilliant Cut Glass, Schiffer Publishing Ltd., Atglen, PA, 2009, 274+, illustrated
Spillman, Jane Shadell, The American Cut Glass Industry, The Corning Museum of Glass, Suffolk, UK, 1996, 320pp, illustrated
Swann, Martha Louise, American Cut & Engraved Glass, Wallace-Homestead Book Co., Radnor, US, 1994, 329+pp, illustrated
American Cut Glass Association, American Cut Glass Association
Corning Museum of Glass, https://home.cmog.org/