The glass is a reproduction of an 1839 Mallorytown, Ontario sugar bowl from ROM’s glass collection of Canadiana, and represents the oldest known Canadian blown glass in existence.

A Toronto based financial group headed by Ernst and Young, and including The Bank of Montreal, Nesbitt Burns and The Canadian Business Magazine bought the piece from Sherman’s studio during this year’s Muskoka Autumn Studio Tour. The sugar bowl is the first one of its type completed for the museum and has Sherman’s signature and #1-ROM engraved on the bottom.

This is Sherman’s second reproduction for the ROM. The first was a glass jug known as the Mallorytown Pitcher and the creation of that reproduction was the subject of a 1990 TV Ontario documentary known as ‘Hands Over Time’. By an amazing coincidence, the first of that reproduction was chosen as a gift for the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario in 1989.

Early Canadian reproductions share space at Sherman’s studio these days with his other glass creations which include blown glass vessels, perfume bottles and glass sculptures.