06/02/2026
The following is an abbreviated version of a featured article from the June issue of Heisey News. If you’d like to see the full article along with many other educational articles about Heisey glassware, please consider becoming a Heisey member today! (Details on how in the comments below)
“No. 1485 Saturn Candelabrum” by Caitlyn Rainey
Heralding the New Year of 1937, the A.H. Heisey Company began introducing No. 1485 Saturn, a fresh, modern pattern created by industrial architect and designer Walter Von Nessen. Using the saturn optic, this line of glassware mimics the sleek layers and rings of the sixth planet. Produced initially in crystal, with Zircon added in April, Heisey promised its patrons a dazzling experience with Saturn, “a symphony of fluid light and shadow.” With reflection and refraction being principal to Saturn’s aesthetics, the two-light candelabrum was its pièce de résistance.
Excluded from the inceptive set of twenty-four pieces, the two-light candelabrum was not promoted by the company until May of 1937, when Heisey featured it in Table Talk. In June, the candelabrum was presented in the company’s Supplement to Pressed Ware Catalog No. 211. That same month, an advertisement for Saturn in the New Yorker reminded shoppers to “always look for the imprinted trademark,” though the candelabrum was not marked with a Diamond H. Another ad in July’s edition of The Crockery and Glass Journal invited readers to see Saturn’s “latest addition” at a series of glassware shows that summer and autumn.
The influence of the Art Deco movement on Saturn can be found in its geometric shapes, Zircon and crystal hues, and simple, yet fine appearance. The pattern’s style is both American and European, traditional and contemporary. With the candelabrum, the eye is drawn to the smooth “encircling rings” of its middle and the pair of ball-drop prisms hanging under the cups.