White Depression Glass from MacBeth Evans – Monax, Cremax and Ivrene

You either love milk glass or you detest it.  I’m in the second camp, just cannot get into opaque when glass is meant to be beautifully transparent.  However, even I find MacBeth Evan’s translucent white and cream glass from the depression era is different; in fact it is beautiful.

The company must have experimented with different colors of white as they produced three main colors, Monax which is pure white, Cremax a rich creamy color, and Ivrene, a more scarce darker color.  I read that the creamy colors were meant to look more like china since the American housewives were more familiar with china dishes than with glass dinnerware.

The company made Petalware in all three colors, with Monax being more common, then Cremax, then Ivrene.  They made very little American Sweetheart in anything other than pink or Monax white.  I did see one piece that was a darker Ivrene color; it was interesting.

This cereal bowl shows Monax at its best.  The edges look blue, opalescent, because the glass is so thin.  (It is very thin but amazingly sturdy.  I seldom find American Sweetheart or Petalware with chips.)

This pretty Petalware creamer is Cremax with gold trim. Monax with gold is not very attractive but you can see the gold rim adds to the look of this Cremax piece. It perks it up.

This plate is the darker Ivrene. Cremax and Ivrene look similar in photos but are quite different when you see them in person.  The plate has traces of gold trim that showed up more in the photo than to the eye!

Here’s an Ivrene saucer with a neat bulls eye design.

Corning Glass eventually bought out MacBeth Evans. Perhaps Corning grew this durable white and cream colored glass into the Corelle dinnerware we have today.