A Melon in the Pumpkin Patch

Our upcoming Pumpkinfest got us wondering: how far back do handmade pumpkins’ roots reach? A little digging led us to Roman glassmakers, Chinese potters—and this brilliant blue melon made right here in Sandwich.

Today’s colorful studio-glass pumpkins are a relatively recent development, but making glass in the shape of fruit goes back nearly 2,000 years. Roman glassmakers blew small bottles into molds shaped like dates and bunches of grapes, reproducing wrinkled skins and clustered berries in glass.

Potters found plenty of inspiration in the garden, too. Chinese makers fashioned pumpkin-shaped teapots, using the fruit’s rounded body and ribs as the vessel’s form. In eighteenth-century England, ceramic makers produced pineapple teapots, cauliflower tureens, and melon-shaped bowls.

By around 1850–1870, the Boston & Sandwich Glass Company was making this melon dish, complete with a curved stem and leafy underplate. The melon’s body and cover were blown into molds; the underplate was pressed. Its familiar shape and decidedly unfamiliar blue color make it a particularly striking example of nature reimagined in glass.

And here’s a little botanical fun fact: pumpkins are fruits, too! Like melons, they develop from flowers and contain seeds—so our blue Sandwich melon fits right into the pumpkin patch.

As you admire your glass pumpkins this fall, remember they have some wonderfully unexpected relatives. From Roman grapes to a Sandwich melon, this family tree has been growing for centuries.