Oven dish

This oval-shaped white oven dish was made by JAJ Pyrex of Sunderland, England, in about 1972. It is decorated with the popular Tempo pattern, featuring flower and leaf motifs in blue, green, brown and orange.

Pyrex was first developed in 1913 at the Corning Glass Works in New York, when one of their physicists, Jesse T. Littleton, was asked by his wife Bessie to bring home a replacement for her broken earthenware casserole dish. He brought her a piece of industrial borosilicate glass, nearly unbreakable, and when she tried it for a sponge cake it gave a uniform cake that was easy to remove from the dish. Pyrex was launched as a commercial product in 1915, and quickly found favour with cooks all over the world.

Initially Pyrex-ware was clear, but from the 1940s manufacturers began producing coloured opal ware and adding decorative patterns in dozens of designs. Patent rights issued in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand allowed for the development of designs targeted to specific international markets, and these are now very sought after by collectors.

Further information

• Leach, Helen. 2014. Kitchens: The New Zealand Kitchen in the 20th Century. Dunedin: Otago University Press.
• Logan, Liz. 2015. How Pyrex Reinvented Glass For a New Age. Smithsonianmag.com. June 5. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-pyrex-reinvented-glass-new-age-180955513/
• That Retro Piece. New Zealand Pyrex. https://thatretropiece.com/pages/new-zealand-pyrex