compote
Object
Accession Number
2015.008.002Description
A fine cut-glass compote, the long, thin undecorated stem with a shallow bowl profusely cut and gilded. The base has a gilded cut-glass pattern of a cluster of flowers flanked by ferns. The bowl is decorated with flowers forming four wreaths and ferns scalloped below them around the perimeter. Gilded cut glass ovals connect the wreaths.History of Use
The set was made circa 1890, and was owned/used by the donor’s great great grandfather, Charles Ray (1835-1926) in his residence at 88 South Prospect Avenue, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.Today the site address is 1410 North Prospect Avenue.Mr. Ray’s professional life included the grain industry, insurance, banking, the coke and gas industry, and for seventeen years, he was the owner/publisher of the Milwaukee Sentinel newspaper. Mr. Ray’s Milwaukee residence was a very large masonry mansion similar to Craigdarroch. Depicted in the book, Milwaukee’s Brady Street Neighborhood (published 2008 by Arcadia Publishing) author Frank D. Alioto says of it: “Charles Ray had prominent Milwaukee architect Edward Townsend Mix build this mansion a century ago at 1410 North Prospect Avenue. Ray came from New York and earned his riches as grain commissioner, president of the National Exchange Bank, and treasurer of Northwestern Mutual Life. The home was torn down in the 1940s".
