MORRISON HECKSCHER: This classically-shaped vase is one of the most important pieces of American glass from the mid-nineteenth century.

ALICE COONEY FRELINGHUYSEN: Important because of its size; it's impressive in quality, and the quality of manufacture -- all blown, but very heavy, very large. Wielding that at the end of a blowpipe would have been challenging indeed.

MORRISON HECKSCHER: The New England Glass Company made this impressive vase. This premier firm operated continuously for seventy years. It was the longest successful enterprise of any American glass factory of the nineteenth-century. And if you look at the rare engraving on the front of the vase, you can actually see the low factory’s furnaces – two for glass and the smaller one for lead. Behind them are masts of ships, because the firm was located right on the water in East Cambridge, Massachusetts. Now move around the vase.

ALICE COONEY FRELINGHUYSEN: On the other side, it has a presentation inscription, "From Henry Whitney to Thomas Leighton, East Cambridge, August 1843, a token of grateful remembrance.

MORRISON HECKSCHER: When Henry Whitney retired as manager of the glassworks, he presented this vase to Thomas Leighton, who was the firm’s chief glassmaker. Leighton’s six sons also worked in the glass industry, and the vase descended in Leighton’s family.