Laurel Leaf Green Cake Stand — 12” Footed Pedestal Salver, Depression-Era Pattern

Indiana Glass’s Laurel Leaf pattern, as a cake stand: twelve inches across, standing on its own fluted pedestal — one piece of glass, plate and foot pressed together rather than joined.

The pattern works outward in bands. A scalloped rim, then the laurel itself — paired leaves running along a wavy stem, right the way round — then a narrow course of fine dashes, and finally long rays radiating in to a plain centre boss. The relief is crisp and sharply cut; you can feel the leaves under a fingertip.

Look into the thick glass at the centre and there is a dense field of tiny seed bubbles, and the pedestal carries faint straw marks — the fine parallel striations left where hot glass met the mould. Marks of pressed glass made the old way, not flaws.

Two honest notes, because they are the questions a careful buyer asks. There is no mark on the piece itself, and Indiana Glass ran this pattern over a long span, so I am not putting a decade on this particular example. And I have tested it under ultraviolet light: it does not fluoresce, so the green comes from iron or chromium rather than uranium. If you collect uranium or vaseline glass, this is not one.

What it is, without any of that: a big, handsome, properly made green glass cake stand in a named pattern, and the kind of thing that earns its place on a table whether or not there is cake on it.

Maker & pattern: Indiana Glass, Laurel Leaf

Form: One-piece footed salver, fluted pedestal, scalloped rim