Baccarat

Crystal Manufactory

« Piccadilly »  Roemer Glass Set

France
Circa 1980

Crystal 

Height : 20 cm (7,8 in.) ; Diameter : 8,3 cm (3,2 in.)

Rare set of 31 Rhine wine glasses, known as “Roemer,” made of clear cut crystal and lined in various colors (amethyst, anise green, cobalt blue, ruby red, emerald green, orange) from the Baccarat factory, Piccadilly model. The flared bowl is adorned with deep, vertical, beveled cuts that pierce through the colored layer, revealing the clear crystal beneath. The base of the glass is decorated with a wide band of finely cut diamond-pointed crosshatching, creating multiple reflections. Each glass rests on a slender, smooth stem of clear crystal, ending in a flat, circular base.

The Piccadilly collection, featured in the official Baccarat catalog since 1933, includes a wide variety of tableware pieces, such as wine glasses, champagne flutes and bowls, Roemer glasses, as well as water pitchers and carafes. This set is often paired with the Buckingham and Balmoral models on formal dining tables. This collection of cut glass was in production for a very long time and remained on the market until 1991.

Biography

The famous Baccarat crystal glassworks, whose origins date back to the 18th century, won its first gold medal at the 1823 Industrial Products Exhibition, where it was praised for “the brilliance and finesse of its crystal” and became France’s leading crystal glassworks. Baccarat was undoubtedly the only French manufacturer at the time to be consistently and masterfully represented at the various exhibitions in which it participated, thereby earning honors and prestigious awards. A key phrase, “the perfection of the material and the cut,” recurs in all reports from the World’s Fairs between 1855 and 1867, where Baccarat crystal dominated due to the quality of its crystal, deemed superior to that of Bohemia and England.