Collecting Gentile Glass Paperweights
Gentile Glass Works was founded by Peter Gentile who was born in Naples, Italy in 1884. The company became famous for making beautiful paperweights affordable for the middle class during the company’s lifespan. Located by the Monongahela River in Star City, West Virginia, Gentile Glass Works remained a family-owned glassmaking company, hiring some of the most innovative designers for its large variety of paperweights.
One of Peter Gentile’s first jobs in the United States was at the Morgantown Glass Works in West Virginia. Learning the latest methods of producing glass, with his own tools and molds at the factory, it was during after-hours when he created glass the way he learned back in Italy.
Henry C. Johnson was the first paperweight maker for Gentile Glass Works who worked in lampwork, creating specific designs for the paperweights. These designs, usually in the form of snakes and lizards, were made from glass, then placed under a dome of clear glass. When Peter’s son John entered the family business after returning home from World War 2 after serving in the Army, the company really took off in popularity. Unique paperweights were designed, many of them by family members, including John’s wife Gertrude. Gertrude Gentile was the first American woman in the history of glassmaking in the United States to learn the craft from its basics, which included the Italian method of glass blowing. Additionally, John’s brothers Frank and Joe also became glassmakers, learning much from their father with the glass blowing technique.
One of the earliest paperweight designs made by Peter Gentile was “Old Glory”, a simple depiction of the American flag against a white background with the words “Old Glory” appearing upon the paperweight. Gentile paperweights were intended to be more modern compared to paperweights made prior to World War 2, and in many cases, following World War 1. Gentile millefiori paperweights were anywhere from being simple to complex in design. While the standard millefiori design was used to create many designs, one of the most beautiful was the simplest, a snowy white swirled background with the red and white millefiori canes forming seven individual flowers.
Other designs include cut large millefiori canes combined with colorful candy shaped swirls against a white swirl background, delicate bicolored swirls combined with air bubbles, icepick flowers, calla lilies, sulphides, and a wide variety of millefiori and confetti paperweights. Millefiori canes purchased from Murano, Italy allowed the Gentile paperweight designers a great deal of freedom in using the cut canes in different placements in the weight, creating random designs, or more often, a larger design. Frit, or ground glass, paperweights were also manufactured, having a motto written in script, often using white glass across the frit background. These paperweights became popular due to their emulating the late 19th-century Gillinder and Millville paperweights of the same style.
It is important to note that paperweights made during the first years of the company were unsigned, while those manufactured in 1963 onward were signed on the bottom of the paperweight. Gentile Glass made paperweights to be exhibited across the nation at events like the New York World’s Fair in 1965. Paperweights were also sold through gift stores across the nation. John Gentile died in 2006 at the age of 83 when the company finally closed.
Image Credit: Zindbar.
