Glassmaking started on the western side of the Dudley Borough centred in Wordsley and Stourbridge from 17th century. From a cottage industry, the expertise of the Stourbridge glassmaking industry continued to evolve, and its engineers and industrialists spread with the empire to set up new operations in the New World. The area become the birthplace of modern glass and the technological advancement reached its zenith between 1850 and1900 when it was considered to have the finest glass craftsmen in the western world.
During this period some of the finest glass in the world was created and Stourbridge was to become the mecca of world glass encouraging glass artisans to migrate to Stourbridge from across Europe. Some came from eastern France, the Huguenots also escaping religious persecution, and some from Bohemia. One of these craftsmen was Jules Barbe and another was Oscar Pierre Erard who went to work for Stevens and Williams.
Born in 1847 and having studied his art in France, Barbe moved to Stourbridge in 1879 having been recruited by Thomas Webb at the 1878 Paris Exhibition. The innovation that he introduced to English glassmaking was ‘raised gilding’.
Responsible for sketching all his designs, many copies of which are in the Corning Museum, his gilding technique involved creating a brownish paste out of gold (a secret formula he took to his grave) and painting the design onto glass. The brushes he used, often consisted of just a few hairs. The painted glass was then fired in specially constructed muffles. After two, three, or sometimes four firings, they were burnished using brushes made from spun glass, and then with agate, and bloodstone.
Barbe left Thomas Webb in 1901, when he started as an independent glass decorator in Stourbridge. Some biographical accounts indicate that he spent most of this period in painting monograms and coats of arms on glass and porcelain. During World War I, he reportedly had to enamel mustard pots to make a living. This was at the end of his career, when sadly his earlier accomplishments apparently sank into oblivion. Thankfully a few attributable and signed pieces show that Jules Barbe was capable of a remarkable craftsmanship.
The Corning Museum of Glass owns several examples of his work.
