Over the weekend of 10-12 September, the New Bedford Museum of Glass (NBMOG) will open its doors after the extensive renovations started in November 2009.
The renovations have transformed 4,000 sq.ft…
Over the weekend of 10-12 September, the New Bedford Museum of Glass (NBMOG) will open its doors after the extensive renovations started in November 2009. The renovations have transformed 4,000 sq.ft. of factory space at the Wamsutta Mill Complex into a crystal palace where more than 1,000 examples of glassmakers“ art are now housed in 50 display cases. Among the highlights of the collection are a core-formed Eastern Mediterranean unguent bottle dating to 600 BC; diamond-point engraved items of early American blown and pressed glass, marbles and paperweights, cup plates, pattern glass, art glass by Tiffany and Steuben, carnival and depression-era glass and studio glass by Chihuly, Littleton, Sautner and more. The exhibition gallery also has on show more than 300 examples of vaseline glass from the extensive collection of Carol D. and Richard M. Bacik, donated to NBMOG in 2009. The entryway to the museum shows a cut glass armchair in the style of glass furniture made during the late 19th and early 20th centuries by F. & C. Osler of Birmingham, England, a type of glass used to furnish Indian palaces. Displays at the new museum also include glass from the 7,000-piece collection started in the 1920s at the Bennington Museum, which comes to New Bedford on a five-year loan while the Bennington Museum reorganizes its galleries. Examples of New Bedford-made glass from the Mount Washington and Pairpoint factories, including Victorian lines such as amberina, lava glass, peachblow, Burmese, Crown Milano and Royal Flemish, decorated glass by Smith Brothers of New Bedford, reverse-painted Pairpoint lamps and blown ware made at the close of the last local glass factory in 1957 are also on display.