Glass for Showing Off

Compotes are all-purpose serving dishes. These usually footed bowls -- with or without lids or covers -- held special desserts, fruits, candies or sauces, jellies and other foods. Blown or pressed glass compotes provided a culinary presentation method suitable to 19th-century middle-class households.

The early 19th century was the heyday of canals in the United States. These artificial waterways opened new territories to settlement and commerce. The Erie Canal connected Albany with Buffalo -- and the Hudson River with Lake Erie. This tumbler is from a set given to DeWitt Clinton, the New York governor who championed the canal, at the project's completion in 1825.