Pattern Name:TREE OF LIFE

Pattern Motif:Plants

Glass Type:Non-Flint

Manufacturer:Portland Glass Company

Era:1870s

Description:50 Favorites - 30. Only one goblet selected for inclusion among the "50 Favorites" occasionally bears a factory mark. Careful examination of Portland Tree of Life examples can reveal the mark "P.G.Co./PATENT" on the underside of the foot. The raised, rustic-style letters are more quickly located by the sense of touch. Until Martha York Jones pointed out the existence of the marked Tree of Life goblets and other tableware forms, this pattern generally was identified as a Sandwich product. Its surface treatment is similar in appearance to the branchlike channels that characterize blown Sanwich overshot glass, and Ruth Webb Lee illustrates a goblet closely related pressed design, fragments of which were excavated at the Sandwich factory site. This goblet differs from the Portland version in several respects. The mold lines are straight and obvious rather than sinuous and barely visable, the foot is almost flat rather than conical and, as John and Elizabeth Welker point ou, the intricately channeled areas of the Sanwich version consist of short, almost parallel lines somewhat suggestive of a herringbone pattern. A design patent for the Portland Tree of Life pattern has not yet turned up, but it is known that Portland superintendent William O. Davis took out a patent for another pressed pattern, the so-called "loop and Dart with Round Ornament," and some of Tree of Life articles have the name "DAVIS" cleverly worked into the pattern. (50 Favorites catalogue) U1, p.67