United States, Ohio (Toledo)
Libbey Glass Company
John Rufus Denman, Patrick W. Walker (cutters)

This famous punch bowl set, produced as a showstopper for the 1904 St. Louis World Fair (the Louisiana Purchase Centennial Exposition), employed all of the skill and artistry of the Libbey Glass Company’s best glassmakers.   Proclaimed at the time the largest single piece of cut glass in the world, the blown, bowl-shaped “blank” of glass that would become the punchbowl weighed 143 pounds. The design was roughed out with iron wheels that cut away chunks of the glass—ultimately some 30 pounds of glass was cut away from the blank. Two of Libbey’s premier glassworkers did the labor-intensive fine cutting that finished the design. The end result dazzled both fairgoers and the judges, who awarded Libbey the Grand Prize Medal for cut glass.

Glass, mold-blown, tooled, cut (variation of Grand Prize pattern), polished, 1903-04
Gift of Libbey Glass Company, division of Owens-Illinois Glass Company, 1946.27A -Y