Steuben Glass is a leading American art glass manufacturer, founded in the summer of 1903 by Frederick Carder and Thomas G. Hawkes in Corning, New York. In 1918, Steuben was acquired by Corning Glass Works and became the Steuben Division. With Carder as division manager and head designer, the company experimented extensively with colored glass, producing a wide array of hues. Made in 1933 during the height of the Depression, the Gazelle Bowl marks a shift in Steuben’s production, after Arthur A. Houghton, Jr. became president of Corning Glass Works and changed the artistic direction at Steuben to produce more modern forms, primarily in clear glass. The Gazelle Bowl was designed by Sydney Biehler Waugh, a sculptor and trained architect from Amherst, Massachusetts. In 1933, Steuben Glass commissioned Waugh to help revive the business by coming up with innovative modern designs for their glass. The Gazelle Bowl is one of Waugh’s first designs for Steuben, and features a line of lithe gazelles rendered in an Art Deco style running around the periphery of the bowl. The gazelles’ proportions and fluid sense of movement offer an interesting contrast to the unembellished symmetry of the bowl and its stand. The Gazelle Bowl is a superior example of the light-refracting quality of Steuben glass, which is achieved as a result of the glass’s high lead content.

The MFA Boston has nineteen works of Steuben glass in its permanent collection: eleven (mostly) colored works designed by Carder and four clear glass works, the more conservative American Ballad Bowl (1942) designed by Waugh, and two works made in the late 1950s. As an example of the French-influenced Art Deco style and the modernist shift in Steuben production, the Gazelle Bowl is one of Waugh’s most iconic designs for Steuben Glass. This is evident through its presence in major collections of American art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Corning Museum of Glass, the Denver Art Museum, and Newfields (formerly the Indianapolis Museum of Art) have Steuben Gazelle bowls represented in their permanent collections. Only one of the works of Steuben glass in the MFA collection is attributed to Sidney Buehler Waugh.

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