Archive for the ‘Glass’ Category

PITCHER IN ‘AGATA’ GLASS
New England Glass Company, U.S.A., after 1885.
Ht. 101 mm (7-5 in.)
‘Agata’: Joseph Locke secured the patent
for the making of ‘Agata’ glass shortly
after 1885. According to his patent, it was
made in the following way. The object to
DC decorated was first partially or wholly
coated with a metallic stain of the desired
colour. The part that was stained was
spattered, or had applied to it a volatile
liquid such as benzene, alcohol or naphtha.
When the volatile liquid evaporated, it
left a mottled surface on the glass, which
was fixed to it by firing in a muffle kiln.
The result was an all-over pattern sug-
gestive of a fanciful golden spider-web on
the glass. Sometimes so-called ‘oil spots’
of a blackish-blue colour appear within
the pattern. This type of decoration is
more usually found on glossy pieces than
on matt-finished ones. The New England
(ilass Company, Mass., produced Agata
glass, mostly confined to decorating their
Wild Rose Peach Blow ware.
VASE IN “SECOND GRIND’ POMONA GLASS WITH
BLUEBERRY DECORATION
New England Glass Company, U.S.A., 1886 r .
III. 121 mm (475 in.)
‘Pomona’ glass was yet another invention
of Joseph Locke’s for the New England
Glass Company. His first patent, issued
in 1885, referred to what is now called
‘first grind’ Pomona, and involved cover-
ing the glass with an acid-resistant coating
carved with thousands of minutely en-
graved lines in the parts where a frosted
appearance was required. When the piece-
was plunged into acid, this cut into the
lines, producing the frosted effect once
the acid-resist was removed. Locke-
achieved a cheaper alternative in his
second patent of 1886, now called ’second
grind’ Pomona. To produce a stippled or
frosted ground, the area required was
covered with a thin layer of some finely
pulverised acid-resisting powder; this
adhered to a thin layer of oil or varnish.
All parts of the vessel protected by these
fine particles were not affected by the acid
bath, which produced a fine stippling
over the body of the article. Pomona
glassware was decorated with amber, blue
and rose-coloured stains.
‘Royal Flemish’: The patent for ‘Royal
Flemish’ glassware was issued to Albert
Stcftin in 1894. Raised gold-enamelled
lines divided the glass article into sections,
which were later coloured to give an
appearance rather like a stained glass
window. The different segments were
painted in transparent enamels in con-
trasting colours, usually brown, beige and
gold. The background of this glass is acid-
finished to give a matt appearance. Royal
Flemish glassware was manufactured by
the Mt. Washington Glass Company,
New Bedford, Mass., about 1890, several
years before the patent was registered. It
is noted for its painted enamels with the
designs in high relief, the old Roman
motif medallions often being used, as in
the jar illustrated. Designs include winged
creatures, cherubs and ‘guba-ducks’.
Sometimes Royal Flemish is marked with
‘RF’, the initial ‘R’ being reversed to the
initial ‘F’, and enclosed in a four-sided
diamond, orange-red in colour.
‘Feloton’ glass was patented in 1880 by
Wilhelm Kralik of Newclt, in Bohemia.
According to his specifications a gather of
glass would be dipped or immersed —
cither before or after it was worked into
shape— into a container that held filaments
or threads of coloured glass, this being
continued until sufficiently adhered to the
metal. He stated that these filaments could
be thrown on to the hot paraison, or the
paraison could be rolled on a surface where
the filaments lay, in order to catch them
up. The article would be reheated at the
glory-hole until the filaments became
homogeneous with the original body of the
glass, and it would then be pressed or hand-
tooled to the desired shape. Clear, coloured
and opaque white backgrounds were used.
Sometimes the finished article would be
given an acid bath for a satin finish.
Occasionally, heavy enamelled surface
decoration was added to give a more ‘busy’
effect.
‘Onyx’ glass was produced by the Dalzcll,
Gilmore, Leighton Company, Findlay,
Ohio, from about 1880; it was in this year
that George W. Leighton of Findlay
secured the patent for the firm. Prom the
Specifications il is apparent that “onyx’
glass was made from a sensitive mix con-
taining metallic constituents capable of
producing silver, ruby and other lustres.
The colours were made In subjecting the
glass to heat and gaseous fumes. Lustre
colours applied to the patterns are usually
in contrast to the main bod) ol the piece.
A moulding process was used that involved
two moulds, one lor pattern, one for
ultimate size and shape. Owing to the
difficulty of the technique, il is rare for any
two similar-shaped pieces to be of ihe
same shade. Rough rims arc quite com-
monplace in onyx glassware, since fire-
polishing these extremities could have
caused the sensitive material to change
colour; the rims were therefore cut and
ground to a tolerable smoothness.
K. Varnish, London. England, about 1850
I II 134 mm (o in.)
Silvered Glass: li was not until F. Hale
Thomson’s patent for silvered glass that a
satisfactory and reasonably economic
method of producing it was successfully
introduced. The British patent for the
production of this glass in quantity was
taken out in December, 1841) by Hale
Thomson and Edward Varnish, the piece
illustrated being made by E. Varnish of
I .ondon in about 1850. The goblet consists
of two layers ol glass, with silver mercury
applied to the back of the glass. The silver
has not discoloured, since goblets made b)
Varnish were permanently sealed. In
addition to a clear outer layer of glass, a
coloured transparent outer casing was also
used; this was carved through, to reveal
the silver-reflecting inner layer. Silvered
glass was made in various parts of Europe,
but Varnish was undoubtedly the best
exponent of the technique. Varnish, Hale
Thomson and others used a stamped
metallic disc J-inch in diameter, embedded
underfoot to mark the factory name on the
piece.
Glass with silver decoration was popular
from the last quarter of the 19th century
to just after the First World War. Several
means of depositing silver and other metals
on glass were patented in the last half of
the 19th century, the most notable being
those of Oscar Pierre Krard, a Frenchman
residing in England, and John H. Scharl-
ing of the U.S.A. Erard produced such
exceptional items as the jug illustrated lor
Stevens & Williams of Brierley Hill,
England. In 1889 he and John Benjamin
Round patented their method for electro-
depositing gold, silver, copper and other
metallic designs on glass, porcelain and
earthenware. They prepared a special flux
containing silver, which was formed into
a wash by being mixed with turpentine.
The design was painted on the glass in this
wash and was then fired in a kiln. The
article was placed in a solution of the
particular metal required, and an electric
current caused this to be deposited on the
glass.
Iridescent Glass: From 1863, when Ludwig
Lobmeyer exhibited the first iridescent
glass to be commercially produced in the
19th century, numerous patents were filed
for methods of making this attractive
glassware. The object was to imitate the
iridescence found on ancient pieces of
glass as a result of burial. In 1877 Thomas
Wilkes Webb of Stourbridge, England
was issued with a patent. The secret of his
method lay in the use of a closed muffle
furnace, where the fumes from the evapor-
ation of tin and other metallic salts were
allowed to come into contact with the
surface of the glass vessel. The hot surface
of the glass has an affinity to the acids being
used, thus causing them to remain perm-
anently attached to the glass. The result is
a rainbow-hued, mirror-like appearance.
In 1878 the patent was amplified to include
a fine crackled effect, in conjunction with
iridescence on the surface of the glass.
Patents for iridescent glassware continued
to be registered until the 1800’s, then for
a short time this ware was made only
sporadically. After 1000 the technique
took on a new lease of life both in the
U.S.A. and on the Continent. The best-
known makers of iridescent glassware in
the U.S.A. in the early 20th century were
Tiffany Furnaces, the Quezal Art Glass &
Decorating Company, the Durand Art
Glass Company, the Union Glass Works,
and the Steuben Glass Works. The last-
named produced iridescent glassware
under the trade name ‘Aurene’, which was
granted to Frederick Carder, Samuel
llawkes and W. II. Hawkes of the firm in
Corning, New York, in 1004. Fred Car-
der’s ‘Aurene’ and ‘Verre de Soie’ glass
ranks very highly. He introduced the
technique of spraying the heated glass in
a muffle kiln with a solution of tin crystals
dissolved in distilled water, which attacked
the surface, causing a shining, iridescent
effect.
‘Verre de Soie’, which translated means
literally ‘glass of silk’, shows the iridescent
finish just described. As in the case of the
example illustrated, practically all the
ware is of a soft grey-white appearance.
Occasionally, a very pale green colour is
added in the manufacture. Frederick
Carder, who had been co-founder of the
Steuben works in 1903, looked after most
aspects of the firm’s glass-making until
igi8, when the plant was sold to the
Corning Glass Works. 1 le continued as art
director until 1034, producing a massive
range of new art glassware. Besides the
glasses mentioned, he was responsible for
such specialities as Jade glass, Cluthra
glass, Cintra glass, Acid Cutback, lvrene,
Calcite glass, Intarsia glass, Bubbly glass,
Paperweight glass. Moss Agate glass,
Millcfiori glass, Rouge Flambe glass, and
others.
Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1934) de-
veloped many unique forms of art glass,
including iridescent ware. With Arthur J.
Nash and his sons A. Douglas and Leslie
Nash, he set up a factory at Corona, Long
Island, New York. Between the years 1894
and 1920 Tiffany’s registered several trade
marks. Leslie Nash, an accomplished glass
technologist, was granted a partnership in
the Tiffany In maces for his creation of the
‘Peacock’ Iridescent Glassware, which
made Tiffany’s world-famous. It should
be noted that it was also he who developed
‘Cypriote’ glassware for Mr. Tiffany. This
glass, an example of which is shown here,
was an imitation of the pearly and pimpled
effect one sometimes finds on the surface
of ancient pieces of glass that have been
buried for a long period. Tans and blues
are used most frequently as colours for
‘Cypriote’, and the surface looks as if it
were constructed of groups of minute
burst bubbles, the size of pinheads.
Tiffany Furnaces made single-colour iri-
descent glassware in which the surface is
broken up into thousands of fractures that
split ordinary daylight into rainbow col-
ours. They also decorated their iridescent
glass with trails from marvered-in coloured
fibres of glass. The quality of the wares
was enhanced by shapes to complement
the decoration; these include flower forms
such as bulbous tulips, or lily tops on long
stems and wide bases. ‘Lava’ glass is
usually found in deep blue and iridescent
gold glass, as in the example shown. A
splotchy iridescent gold is also found
amongst the deep blue. Tiffany became
famous for many other forms of art glass,
particularly for his Paperweight glass,
Agate, Marbleised ware, Cameo Glass,
Intaglio, Millefiori and Diatreta ware.
Other Tiffany products, apart from vessel
glass, were stained glass windows, mosaics,
enamels, jewellery with iridescent glass
and lamps with shades of floral or insect
design.
VASE IN IRIDESCENT GLASS
J. Ltttz Witwe, Austria, aboui iuoo
in pair de verre
Henri Cros, France, late ii|ih centur) ‘early aoth
». en tun
Some excellent iridescent glassware was
made, during its revived popularity, by the
Austrian firm of Ldtz (Loetz of Austria),
also known as L6tZ Witwe of Klastcrsky
\ll\n. The shapes and surface iridescence
show great similarity to some of the best
American iridescent glass products, not-
ably those of Tiffany furnaces. A com-
bination of iridescent and glossy finishing,
however, is usually restricted to Lbtz, and
is not seen on any Tiffany pieces. Other
makers of fine iridescent glassware were
the Quczal Art Glass & Decorating Com-
pany already mentioned, founded b>
Martin Bach (formerly an employee of
Tiffany Furnaces), in Brooklyn, New
York. The Durand Art Glass Company
produced beautiful iridescent glass at its
factory in Vineland, New Jersey. Late-
pressed iridescent glassware was produced
notably by the Northwood Company of
Wheeling, West Virginia, and Indiana,
Pennsylvania, the Fcnton Art Glass Works
of Williamstown. West Virginia, and the
Imperial Glass Company ol Belaire, Ohio.
Pale de verre, which was known in
antiquity, was revived in modern times by
the Frenchman Henri Cms (1840-1907).
The making of pate de verre is a technique
which lies somewhere between pottery and
glass-making whereby a plastic material of
powdered glass can be made into sculp-
tural forms or vessels by a process of
moulding. Henri Cros started his career as
a sculptor and painter, but was continually
fascinated by ancient techniques, so he
combined both arts in producing models
in coloured wax as craftsmen did in the
16th century. He evidently wished to
discover a plastic substance which could
be used for polychrome sculpture, so he
set to work to discover the lost secret of
plastic glass or pate de verre. It was only
after many years that he found a com-
position of powdered glass that could be
coloured and moulded. At home, and later
at the Sevres factory, he conducted
numerous experiments, and finally suc-
cessfully produced his own pale de verre.
Between 1893 and 1903 Henri Cros
produced a famous series of reliefs in
several colours in pate de verre. To produce
them, he placed in a hollow mould of
refractory clay a mixture of powdered
glass and other constituents in a soft pasty
condition, which was allowed to dry for a
time. It was then fused in a muffle furnace,
the mould breaking away, and the baked
shape was then ready to be polished or
wiped clean. The exact constituents or
how they were worked were never dis-
cussed by Henri Cros; the only informa-
tion he disclosed was that he used ‘un-
coloured powders made from blocks of
glass produced in crucibles’ which was
something of an over-simplification. His
son Jean was the only person to directly
follow in his footsteps, producing works in
pale de verre in his style. Dammouse,
Dccorchcmont and the rest found their
own individual interpretations of pate de
verre.
Albert Dammouse (1848 1926) was a
potter at the Sevres factory and began
experimenting with small vessels in pale
de verre in 1898. The material he used was
a soft enamel paste somewhere between
soft porcelain and glass, basically different
from that used by Henri Cros. The
products had a slight translucency. He
moulded this material into fragile vessels
with delicate flowers in pastel shades. It
could be said of his work that he showed
off the technique of pate de verre to the
best advantage and achieved the finest
harmony between form and material in the
vases he produced. Another worker in
pate de verre who deserves a mention is
Georges Despret (1862-1952); in the
Exhibition in Paris in 1900, he showed
some small bowls in ‘natural’ shapes, of a
heavier pate de verre in dark shades.
Despret’s pate de verre was a dense, almost
opaque, yet richly coloured paste, remin-
iscent of precious stones, which was some-
times engraved. Emile Galle also occasion-
ally made objects in pate de verre.
By Francois Decorchemont, France, i.iuio
Hi. 178 mm (7 in.)
From 1904, Francois Decorchemont dedi-
cated himself completely to the making of
vessels in pale de verre. He had been
originally a painter and potter, but found
the medium of pale de verre more satisfy-
ing. In his early work he used to put his
paste in the mould until it dried sufficiently
to be removed, then he proceeded to shape-
it as a potter did, and bred it in a muffle
furnace. In his later work he never re-
moved the paste from the mould, with
much better results. His first works were
made in a fine but opaque substance which
was rather grey and dull. It was only after
he returned from the First World War,
towards 1920, that he discovered the
formula for a hard, translucent material,
made up of silica and oxide colouring
agents in entirely new proportions. This
material was placed in a mould based on a
plaster model, the thickness being regu-
lated throughout.
vase in green pale de verre
By Francois Decorchemont. France, 1930
Hi. 162 mm (6-38 in.)
Decorchemont’s paste was baked for a
matter of 20 hours in an oil furnace he had
designed on the same lines as an oil lamp.
It was allowed to cool slowly, before being
removed from the mould, and then the
parts that were to look bright against a dull
background were polished. Until 1914 he
had made small vessels decorated with
animal or plant motifs in Art Nouveau
style. Between the wars he continued his
work in pate de verre, which differed from
that of other makers in that he worked with
a fairly heavy material, reminiscent of
natural stone in consistency and colouring.
He moulded this into plain shapes, at
times somewhat hard and angular in
outlines. The vase illustrated, in green
pate de verre, is an excellent example.
When his glasses were exhibited in 1925,
the Recorder of the Glass Section, Antonin
Daum, commented on their ’style, their
form and their sober magnificence’. In
later years Decorchemont did some ex-
quisite sculptural work, which in both
material and shape is reminiscent of jade.
plaque in white vitreous paste depicting
oliver cromw ell
Tassic. England, r.1700. Ht. 152-5 mm (6 in.)
James Tassie (1735-99), his nephew
William (1777-1860), and their successor
(from 1840) John Wilson, made original
portraits and copies of engraved gems in a
white vitreous paste related to pate de verre.
James Tassie was born at Pollokshaws,
near Glasgow, and began his career as a
stonemason. He learnt how to make casts
of engraved gems in glass paste from Dr.
Henry Quin of Dublin and in 1767
established himself in London, where he,
and later William and John Wilson, pro-
duced their medallions, casts and reliefs in
white and coloured paste. Tassie’s medium
was a finely powdered potash-lead glass or
pate de verre, which was first softened by
heating. When fully plastic, the glass was
pressed into a plaster of Paris mould,
which had the impression of the subject
being reproduced on its inner surface.
When an original portrait relief was being
made, a wax impression was first modelled,
from which a plaster mould was then made.
finger bowl and plate in ‘tortoise-shell’ glass
About 1880. Ht. 102 mm (4 in.)
‘Tortoise-SkeW Class was made in both
the U.S.A. and Europe. The ware has a
glossy finish, and the brown mottling is
enclosed between two layers of glass. An
interesting description of the process is
given by a German chemist, Francis Pohl
of Silesia, who received provisional pro-
tection only on a patent registered on
October 25, 1880. Several bubbles of
different shades of brown glass were
blown and then broken into small pieces.
Next, a bubble of plain glass was blown
and cut round the middle, leaving the
lower portion adhering to the blow-pipe.
While this was being done another bubble
of plain glass was being blown and rolled
in the fragments of brown glass, which
were carefully marvered in. This bubble
was inserted in the cut-off upper portion of
the first bulb, and the two were blown
together. The bulb was then reheated and
blown into the required article.
Steuben Glass Works. U.S.A., early 20th century
Ht 254 mm (10 in.)
Cluthra Class: Fred ( .arder of the Steuben
Glass Works of New York was responsible
for many developments in the coloured
glass field. Steuben depended wholly on
its sales of coloured glass to stay in busi-
ness, so vast ranges of colours and a great
variety of shapes were available. One ol
Fred Carder’s developments was the so-
called Cluthra glass, which is a partially
transparent, two-layered glass. The exam-
ple shown is the most common shape in
the Cluthra line. Between the two layers of
glass small air pockets in the centre of
white splotches have been introduced by
the use of chemicals; the air pockets are
slightly off-centre of the white marks.
Cluthra comes in single colours as well as
in shaded pieces; sometimes the pieces arc-
signed. The Kimball Glass Company,
Vineland, New Jersey, also produced a
cluthra-type glass. Knglish Gray Stan
glass, produced in the 1920’s, likewise-
made use of Cluthra decoration.
VASE IN ‘INTARSIA’ GIASS
Hy Frederick (larder. Steuben Cilass Works.
U.S.A., late 1920s early 1930*5
Ht. 15a mm (6 in.)
‘Intarsiu’ glass, made at the Steuben Glass
Works, Corning, New York, in the late
1920’s and early 1930’s, was considered by
Frederick Carder to be his greatest achieve-
ment in artistic glass-making. The name-
was probably derived from mlarsiatura, a
type of 15th-century Italian marquetry.
1 n tarsia pieces are made up of three livers
two clear, colourless layers encasing a layer
of coloured glass which forms the design.
To make a piece such as the one illustrated.
Carder would blow a bubble of clear
colourless glass and case this with a thin
layer of coloured glass. This was allowed
to cool, and a design was etched through
the outer coloured casing. A further gather
of clear, colourless glass was then taken up,
which sealed in the coloured design. The
bubble was then blown to the required
shape—usually a vase or a bowl, though a
few wine-glasses were made.
Powdered Glass Decoration: In 1806, John
Davenport of” the Davenport firm at
Longport, Stoke-on-Trent, England, pa-
tented ‘A New Method of Ornamenting
of all Kinds of Glass in Imitation of
Engraving or Etching, by Means of which
Borders, Cyphers, Coats of Arms, Draw-
ings, and the Most Elaborate Designs may
be Executed in a Stile of Elegance’. A thin
coating of a powdered glass paste was laid
upon the surface of the glass, and a pointed
tool was used to scrape off the coating into
the desired pattern. The glass was then
light!) fired, so that the decoration fused
with the surfaceof the glass. The ornamen-
tation does not really resemble engraving
or etching, but is entirely pleasing. It is
presumed that this patent refers to a group
<il glasses, with the word ‘Patent’ inscribed
on their bases, which arc decorated with a
\anety of patterns, including heraldic-
insignia, and elaborate sporting scenes
with costumed figures dating to the
beginning of the century.
Decorative Inclusions: Apsley Pellatt
(1791-186?) established a glass-house in
Kalcon Street, Southwark, in London. He
was interested in the French process <il
‘cameo incrustations’, or objects contain-
ing ’sulphides’. In 1819 he patented
several methods of embedding small white-
paste figures in clear glass. The process,
which he first called ‘crystallo ceramic-’,
then ‘cameo incrustations’, involved the
enclosing of medallions and ornaments ol
pottery ware, metal or refractory material
in glass. The ornament was pre-heated
then covered with the hot glass; some
difficulties were encountered, due to the
differing rates of contraction and acci-
dental air bubbles. He decorated many
objects in this technique, including paper-
weights, decanters, smelling bottles, wine
glasses, girandoles and plaques. As in the
cup illustrated, the glass vessels were often
finished by fine cutting. The process was
apparently first used in Bohemia in the
mid-18th century, and was later developed
by the French factories such as Baccarat
and Clichy.
The making of objects in crystallo ceramie
has been previously attributed to Bohemia
from the 13th, 16th and late 18th cen-
turies. However, most Bohemian examples
of the technique seem to date to the first
half of the iqth century. Dionysus Lardner
in his treatise on glass-making dated 1832
said that cameo incrustation was first
attempted about 50 years before (that is,
about 1780) by a Bohemian glass manufac-
turer. His success was indifferent, for
‘the material of which he made choice for
his figures, expanded and contracted very
unequally with the surrounding glass, and
their adhesion to it was consequently
imperfect’. Lardner later spoke of the
success of the Frenchmen Saint Amans
and Desprez and of the Englishman
Apsley Pellatt in cameo incrustation. The
most successful of Apsley Pellatt’s methods
involved the use of a mixture of china clay
and supersilicate of potash for his cameos.
These were slightly baked, and then
heated to redness in a muffle furnace,
ready for use with the glass.
Thomas  Sons. Knyiland. 1SX7
Diam. 152 mm (h in.)
A cylindrical flint glass pocket attached to
the end of a hollow iron rod was prepared.
The hot cameo was inserted into this and
the end of the cylinder was closed. Air was
then sucked out of the hollow iron rod,
causing the collapse of the glass on to the
cameo, so that glass and composition figure
became one homogeneous mass. Numer-
ous examples of cameo incrustation can be
found in tqth century glass from French,
Bohemian and English glass factories.
Objects made include plaques, pendants,
scent bottles, covered boxes, tumblers,
goblets, \ ases, and of course paperweights.
Both clear and colourless glass and col-
oured glasses were used in their manufac-
ture. The bowl illustrated is a rarity, since
the cameo incrustation is used in conjunc-
tion with Satinglass, though of course the
cameos are enclosed in clear glass and
applied to the sides of the bowl. Two
cameos of Queen Victoria of England are
attached to the front and back of the bowl,
which was made by Thomas Webb & Sons
in 1887, to commemorate Victoria’s Dia-
mond Jubilee.
doorstop (paperweight in green bottle glass
with ei.ower decoration enclosed
Norlh of Kngland, late igih century
Ml 127 mm (5 in.)
Towards the later part of the 19th century
popular glassware items were the heavy,
clear green glass doorstops or rough
paperweights produced in some factories
in England. These made decorative but
useful glass objects available to working
people. They were made of green bottle
glass, and were of a tall beehive shape, very
often containing the airy pattern of a
flower, as in the example illustrated, or
else enclosing an arrangement of spaced
bubbles. It has been discovered that a few
of these glass doorstops bear the same
stamp that can be found on the base of
bottles made at the Kilner factory in
Wakefield. It is also known that a specially
designed doorstop of this type, enclosing
a ceramic bust—presumably of Queen
Victoria—was made for the 1887 Jubilee
in a glass-works at Knottingley in the
West Riding of Yorkshire.
‘graal’ glass
Simon Gate, Orrefors, Sweden, 1917
When the factory of Orrefors, Sweden,
engaged the two artists, Simon Gate and
Edward Hald to design glass, one of the
major objects of the director and manager
of the factory was that they might be able
to improve on the factory’s production of
cascd-glass vases done in the manner of
Galle since 1914. In 1916 Albert Ahlin, the
manager, Knut Bergqvist, master glass-
blower at the factory from 1914, and Simon
Gate worked out their improvements.
They called their new technique ‘Graal
glass’. In Galle’s cased-glass the process of
cutting and etching the ornamental pattern
from two or three or more layers of glass
was all-important. In ‘Graal glass’ this was
just an intermediate stage, after which the
vessel was subjected to working in the
furnace, where the ornaments acquired
that fluidity which is their greatest fascin-
ation. Gate liked designs in many colours,
with figures in vivid movement.

WINE-GLASS, BLUE GLASS CASED OVER
GLASS, with ACID-ETCHED DECORATION
Benjamin Richardson, England, 1857
I It. 143 mm (563 in.)
Acid Etching: Although acid-etched glasses
arc known to exist from the 17th century,
the process was not generally used in glass-
making until the 19th century, with the
discovery of hydrofluoric acid. Heinrich
Schwanhardt (d.1693), son of the Nurem-
berg engraver Georg Schwanhardt, is
recorded to have engraved glasses with
acid, one example attributed to him being
dated 1686. The technique can be used
either to cut through one layer of glass to
another, as in the glass illustrated, or to
provide a single-layered glass with a matt
finish. An acid-resist such as wax paraffin
covers the parts that are not to be affected,
the pattern having been cut through the
resist. The surface of the glass is then
treated in an acid bath (such as a mixture
of 100 parts of water, 10 of potassium
fluoride and t part hydrochloric acid).
Benjamin Richardson of the Richardson
firm of Stourbridge took out a patent to
etch glasses in 1857.
VASE WITH ACID-ETCHED DECORATION
J. & J. Northwood, England, r.1878.
Ht. 216 mm (85 in.)
It was only in the 19th and 20th centuries
that acid-etching became at all an accepted
mode of decoration. In England it is
known that the Dudley firm of Thomas
Hawkes used the technique in the 1830’s.
Besides flat glass objects, wine-glasses,
bottles and vases were being acid-etched
by the 1840’s. John Northwood and T.
Guest were involved in the Richardson
experiments with acid-etching, and in the
186o’s established themselves as individual
firms specialising in etching. They were
known as J. 8c J. Northwood, and Guest
Brothers respectively, and produced a
quantity of etched work in the later 1860’s
and 1870V The skill and delicacy of the
etching they achieved can be seen on the
vase illustrated, made at the J. 8c J.
Northwood works and shown at the Paris
Exhibition of 1878. Acid-etching was by
no means a technique confined to England,
however.
The Techniques of’Taking Away
As Maurice Marinoi of Trance grew to
understand the nature and working of
glass, he experimented with its ornamen-
tation. In 1922 he began using the
technique of acid-etching in a manner
distinctly his own. The process had been
used by French glass-makers since the
mid-19th century. F.mile Galle, comment-
ing on the technique, had said that it would
not do for delicate work, but ‘it cuts into
certain glasses in a manner of its own’. He
used it in his factory from 1890 onwards,
and the Daum factory had also used it to
some extent. Marinot took up acid-etching
because it suited his purpose better than
any other decorative technique. When he
employed acid-etching he used the massi v e
forms he had always favoured, in trans-
parent, occasionally tinted, glass. The
etched designs cut deeply into the surface,
giving an almost sculptural look to the
glass. The whole surface of the glass was
subjected to the treatment, with the most
varied results.
Acid-etching has been used to give a matt
surface to the colourless glass vase illus-
trated. This slender vase has a round foot,
w ith a long stem widening slightly towards
the bowl, which is of an exaggerated tulip
shape. It is just one example of the beaut]
of modern Swedish glass. Even such an
aesthetically difficult technique as etching
has been triumphantly used to give .1
beautiful all-over textural and eye-catch-
ing finish. It has been said that ‘Sweden’s
great contribution to modern design was
to transform Functionalism from an in-
tellectual theory into a practical instru-
ment for better living’ (Polak, 1962). This
was eminently shown in her glass-making;
but besides qualities like fitness for prac-
tical purpose, toughness in wear and
cheapness of production, the general aim
from the beginning was to create objects
of beauty. The Swedes succeeded in their
glassware perhaps more than in any other
branch of modern design.
ENGRAVED AND SAND-BLASTED VASE
Hy Sverre FtTterscn, Hadeland, Norway, 1038
Sand-blasling: In the process of sand-
blasting a stream of sand, crushed flint or
powdered iron is directed on to the surface
of the glass in a jet of air. The parts of the
glass to be left plain are covered with a
stencil plate of steel, or an elastic varnish
or rubber solution painted on to form a
protective shield. The type of finish is
varied by altering the size of the nozzle, or
the abrasive, or the air pressure. The
technique has been in use since 1870,
though it has rarely been applied to vessel
glass, except for lettering on mass-pro-
duced items, and is mainly used on glass
panels for decorative architectural use.
One of the more successful uses of sand-
blasting on vessel glass was by Sverre
Pettersen of Norway (1884-1959), who
was engaged as designer to Hadelands
Cilasswerk in 1928—at that time the only
factory for table glass and decorative glass
in Norway. During the ‘thirties he pro-
duced some very interesting pieces with
sand-blasted decoration.
PLATE WITH SAND-BLASTED ENGRAVING
By I adislav Oliva, Czechoslovakia, 1959
Diam. 362 mm (1425 in,)
Such are the difficulties attached to using
sand-blasting for anything but the heaviest
surface decoration that only very occasion-
ally are satisfying examples of the tech-
nique to be found. One of the exceptions is
this plate, designed and executed by
Ladislav Oliva (b. 1933) in Czechoslovakia.
The plate, in clear colourless lead crystal
glass, has a slightly raised rim, and the
grille-like decoration is in the form of cuts
about to mm (4/ioths in.) deep. Oliva
manages through this technique to give
the glass a new and exciting appearance.
His decorative themes always seem to
result from the natural lights of the heavy
glass mass. The matt finish that sand-
blasting imports to the glass can be very
pleasant to the touch, although sometimes
it can give a fairly rough effect.
The  century has been called the ‘golden
age of glass”, for it added many new tech-
niques to the glass-maker’s repertoire. This
sudden burst of activity can be put down to
many factors, including ‘the industrial revo-
lution, the relaxation of government controls
on the industry (specifically in England) and
a pride of craftsmanship born of freedom’
I Revi, i<)5g). Not since the Italian Renais-
sance had there been such an interest in new
glass-making ideas. In America the larger
firms hired scientists to discover new methods
of colouring glass, one of the best-known
being the Englishman Joseph I^ocke. In
Britain and on the Continent there was keen
rivalry in producing new types of art glass
for a highly competitive market. Demand
rem lied its zenith towards the end of the
I ii torian era. Since then, though new
techniques have still greatly interested glass-
makers, the art glass produced has reflected
the inherent qualities of the material, rather
than added decorative effects.
Pearl Satinglass, also known as Pearl Ware,
Mother-of-Pearl Satinglass and Verre de
Soie, can be found in a variety of patterns
and colours, but basically it shows the
technique of keeping a symmetrical or
controlled pattern of air traps within the
body of a vessel. The vase illustrated shows
a typical example in the so-called hobnail
pattern. Benjamin Richardson of England
filed the first patent for this technique in
1857. His method was quite simple. A
gather of glass was blown into a mould
which carried the pattern in projected
form. The piece, thus indented, was
covered by a further gather of glass, which
caused air traps to form over the pattern.
Another method current in England and
America in the late 19th century was to line
a heated mould with glass tubes, either
clear and colourless or coloured, and to
blow a bubble of glass into this mould.
BOWL OPAQUE IVORI
COLOURED GLASS CASED WITH A P.AIJi RUBY OUTER
LAYER
Stevens & Williams, England, about 1885
lit. 140 mm (55 in.)
The tubes would thus be caught up and
marvered into the body of the glass. By
twisting the paraison the worker produced
articles of glass with pearly swirled stripes
on the outer surface. This method was
probably used to produce the body of the
bowl illustrated, which has been further
worked to form a frilly rim, and has the
heavy applied decoration current around
1885, Patents to produce Pearl Satinglass
were filed by firms in New York in 1881
and France in 1885. The Mt. Washington
Glass Company of the U.S.A. filed patents
in 1886, which also suggested using heat-
sensitive metal to colour the glass, and
giving the article a lustreless finish by
using an acid bath, or by sand-blasting.
The Phoenix Glass Company of Pennsyl-
vania filed patents in 1886, 1887 and 1888;
the final patent described the use of two
moulds, one to pattern the inner wall of
the article, the other to be used after the
outer casing of glass had been applied.
FAIRY LAMP IN PEARL SATINGLASS, RAINBOW STRIPED
IN BLUE, ROSE, YELLOW AND APRICOT
About 1885. lit. 152 mm (6 in.)
The finished product made by the tech-
nique last described displayed a criss-
crossed network of pearly-indented lines
contained in the body of the article.
William Webb Boulton, who had the
Audnam Bank glass-house in England,
filed a patent for Pearl Satin Glass in 1885.
Other English glass-houses manufactured
this type of glass, notably Stevens &
Williams of Brierley Hill, who called it
‘Verre de Soie\ Much of the Pearl Satin-
glass produced in the late 19th century
came from Bohemian and French factories.
These cheaper wares, supplied by factories
at Steinschonau and Altrohlau, Bohemia,
effectively ruined the market for the finer
wares of England and America. Many
different means were used to colour Pearl
Satinglass. The rainbow striping suggested
in this fairy lamp was produced by laying
coloured rods of glass on the body of the
article before it was fully formed.
VASE IN PEARL SATINGLASS
Thomas Webb & Sons, England, probably early
iSoo’s. Hi. 260 mm (1025 in.)
The technical development of trapping air
in moulded recesses between an opaque-
glass body and a tinted layer was further
refined by Thomas Webb & Sons of
England. In the magnificent example
illustrated the vase has a diamond air-lock
pattern between opaque and translucent
layers of glass, but has been covered by an
outer layer etched away to form a floral
pattern in relief; the whole article has a
satin finish. In 1889 Thomas Webb
patented this process for manufacturing
cameo relief designs on articles of Pearl
Satin Ware. After the diamond air lock
pattern had been produced in the usual
way, an extra coating of opaque white or
coloured glass was applied. The design
was painted on to this coating with acid-
resisting inks; when the article was plunged
into an acid bath, the acid dissolved away
all glass not protected by the resist. The
glass-maker had to be extremely careful
not ti) leave the object in the acid too long,
lest the acid reached the air traps.
FOOTED VASE, WITH CORAIE1NE DECOR AI ION
Last quarter of iqih century. 111. 127 mm (j in.)
Corulene: ‘The vase illustrated displays a
type of decoration that became popular
from its introduction in the last quarter of
the 19th century and is known as
‘Coralcne’. A design was painted in enamel
on the surface of a glass. Tiny glass beads,
which could be clear, coloured or opales-
cent, were then applied and stuck to the
enamel paint of the design. The object was
next put into a muffle-kiln, where the
enamel and beads were fired firmly into
place. Decoration could be in the shape of
coral, but is also seen in fleur-de-lis,
herringbone, sheaf of wheat and many-
other patterns. This type of decoration is
found in all colours and on all types of
glassware. Coralenc was so named by the
Mt. Washington Glass Company in the
U.S.A., and by several Continental and
English glass manufacturers. Its use was
not restricted to any one factory.
Amberina is generally recognised as a
clear amber glass shading to red at the top.
The patent for it, dated July 24, 1883, was
granted to Joseph Locke of the Libbey
Glass Company. This remarkable man was
born in Worcester, Kngland, in 1846 and
worked first as a potter. Guest Brothers of
Stourbridge, etchers and decorators of
glass, engaged him, but later he was
persuaded to join the firm of Hodgetts,
Richardson & Company, where he pro-
duced his copy of the Portland vase. After
various employments, Locke finally went
to America in 1882, where he was signed
on by the New Kngland Glass Company
of Cambridge, Mass., later to become the
Libbey Glass Company of Toledo, Ohio.
‘Amberina’, ‘Pomona’, and ‘Agata’ glass
are only a few of his achievements while in
their employment. Amberina was the first
patented method for producing shaded
and parti-coloured glassware from a sen-
sitive homogeneous metal.
To produce Amberina a very small amount
of gold in solution was colloidally dis-
persed in a transparent amber glass metal.
When an object had been made from this
mix, it was allowed to cool below a glowing
red heat and then certain parts were re-
heated at the ‘glory hole’ (a small opening
in the furnace). This caused a red colour to
strike in the reheated portions—but over-
firing caused a fuchsia or purple shading.
Further patents were issued either to
Locke or to Kdward D. Libbey. An
interesting development was the produc-
tion of blanks composed of sensitive
Amberina glass which, after moulding,
were reheated to produce a deep ruby
colour on the outer surface only. A design
would be cut through to the undeveloped
amber colour below, giving a rich effect.
Amberina was made in Cambridge, Mass.,
between 1883 and 1888 by the New
Kngland Glass Company. A fine though
short-lived revival was made between 1917
and 1920, when the firm had moved to
Toledo, Ohio; one of its products is
shown above.
New England Glass Company, U.S.A., 1886
Ht. 178 mm (7 in.)
Almost every glass company in Europe and
America probably made Amberina at some
time during this period. A new technique
was patented for the New England Glass
Company in 1883 and was called ‘Plated
Amberina’; this was unique to that firm.
A piece of opal or opalescent glass plated
with a gold-ruby mixture was reheated at
the ‘glory hole’, so that it would develop
deeper and lighter shadings on its outer
surface. When Amberina metal was used,
the shading would of course be amber-to-
red. However, other colours could be
made: a sensitive cobalt and ruby glass
mixture would produce a plated ware
shading from blue to ruby. Canary, blue
and green colours were also mentioned in
the patent. Plated Amberina invariably has
moulded ribbed decoration, as in the
example shown, though this had no par-
ticular bearing on the specifications men-
tioned in the patent. It was manufactured
only from 1883 to 1886.
PARFA1T oi.ass in rose amber glass
Ml Washington Glass Company, U.S.A., 1886
Ht. 127 mm (5 in.)
The Mt. Washington Glass Company,
New Bedford, Mass., attempted more or
less successfully to produce its own
Amberina glass under the name ‘Rose
Amber’. This was in every way similar to
Locke’s Amberina. Needless to say, the
New England Glass Company had an
injunction granted in 1886 in their suit
against the Mt. Washington Glass Com-
pany for infringement of their patent.
The Circuit Court of the United States
forbade the New Bedford firm to produce
its Rose Amber wares. However, it did not
seem that this injunction had any effect.
The New Bedford Board of Trade Report
of 1889 describes the making of Amberina,
Rose Amber, by ‘two companies, of which
the Mt. Washington was one’, and de-
scribes how ‘it caught the popular fancy
and was all the rage for about two years’.
According to this report it was the success
of the Amberina glass that caused Mt.
Washington to go in for an opaque shaded
ware—Burmese glass.
AMBERINA GLASS
New England Glass Company, U.S.A., iS
iii. 121 mm (475 in.)
WINE-GLASS IN ALEXANDRITE GLASS
English, beginning of 2olh century
Ht. 114 mm (45 in.)
Quite a number of Amberina pieces were
pressed or press-moulded. This piece can
definitely be attributed to the New Eng-
land Glass Company, since it follows a
design sketch made by Joseph Locke in
1884 when he was head designer for the
Cambridge winks. I lobbs Brockunier &
Company of Wheeling, West Virginia,
were licensed to manufacture pressed
Amberina by the New England Glass
Company in 1886. Sowerby’s Ellison Glass
Works Ltd., Gateshead-on-Tyne, Eng-
land, were also licensed to produce pressed
Amberina in 1883. A transparent, homo-
geneous glass shading from pale amber to
a delicate rose tint was press-moulded by
the firm of CristalletICS de Baccarat of
France from 1916. Known as ‘Rose Teinte’,
or to collectors as ‘Baccarat’s Amberina’,
it was reintroduced in 1940 as a popular
item. Its delicate colours were a result of
using less gold salts in the glass, but its
similarity to the American Amberina and
Rose Amber is undisputed.
‘Alexandrite’ glass, a single-layer glass of
three blended colours, first appeared about
1900, and is reputed to have been made by
the two English firms of Thomas Webb &
Sons and Stevens & Williams. 11 started off
as an amber glass; a portion would be re-
heated to rose, and reheated again to blue
on the outer rim, producing an exception-
ally beautiful effect. It is found in plain as
well as patterned surfaces. Stevens &
Williams used a differing technique to
produce the same effect. They cased a body
glass of transparent amber with rose and
blue glass. The outer casings of blue and
rose were then cut away, to reveal the
yellow glass beneath. Kolo Moser, a glass
designer of Bohemia of the early 1900’s,
produced an amethyst transparent glass
which carries the mark ‘Alexandria, but
this one-colour ware should not be con-
fused with the work attributed earlier to
Webb and Stevens & Williams.
PITCHER IN RUBY GLASS WITH DEVELOPED
OPALESCENT DESIGN
I hi i ijih century. I It. 279 mm (11 in.)
Opalescent Glass: In the late 19th century
glasses with raised opalescent white de-
signs became very popular. A coloured
gather of glass was heavily coated with a
sensitive, clear colourless glass containing
bone ash and arsenic. This was blown into
a patterned mould to give it the raised
design. It was then cooled slightly and
reheated, the raised parts striking an
opalescent white, while the background
retained the original colour. Inexpensive
glassware in this technique was produced
by Hobbs Brockunier & Company of
Wheeling, West Virginia; Alexander J.
Beatty & Sons of Steubenville, Ohio;
Phillip Arbogast of Pittsburgh, Pennsyl-
vania ; John Bryce & Company of Pitts-
burgh ; King & Company of Pittsburgh;
and Doyle & Company of Pittsburgh, and
others. Thomas Davidson of George
Davidson & Company Ltd. the Teams
Glass Works, Gateshead-on-Tyne, Eng-
land, patented in 1889 a process for making
a pressed, shaded version, in which the
opalescence was either white or of the
same shade as the body metal.
VASE IN BURMESE GLASS
Ml. Washington Glass Company, U.S.A., 1885
Ht. 305 mm (12 in.)
‘Burmese’ glass is a single-layered glass
shading from opaque greenish-yellow to
deep pink at the top. It was developed by
the Mt. Washington Glass Company,
New Bedford, Mass. Frederick S. Shirley
patented his formula for Burmese in 1885
for the firm. He produced the glass by
adding small amounts of fluorspar, feldspar
and oxide of uranium to essentially the
same ingredients as used by Joseph Locke
to make his Amberina glass. The fluorspar
and feldspar gave the glass its translucency,
and the uranium oxide made the ordin-
arily translucent white glass melt a pale-
yellow in colour; the gold made the glass
sensitive to thermal changes so that when
reheated at the ‘glory hole’ it struck a
salmon pink colour, which shaded down
to the original yellow. A second reheating
caused the pink glass to revert back to its
yellow colour, a feature quite often seen
on the rim of a piece of Burmese glass.
Frederick Shirley’s formula for Burmese-
glass was patented in England in 1886.
Thomas Webb 8i Sons of Stourbridge,
England, purchased a licence to copy-
Burmese products as well as to produce
their own shapes and designs. Most ol t he-
English Burmese ware is acid-finished,
though Mt. Washington produced both
glossy and acid-finished Burmese ware.
Thomas Webb & Sons called their glass
‘Queen’s Burmese Ware’. The glass was
much used for the patent ‘fairy lights’ or
small individual candle shades so popular
in England and America in the late
‘eighties. Queen Victoria ordered a tea-set
in Burmese glass from the Mt. Washington
Glass Company, enamelled with what was
to become known as the ‘Queen’s’ design.
The ornamentation of Burmese ware was
often of a highly decorative order. Verses
by well-known poets, Egyptian scenes, and
bird and animal portrayals were included
in enamelled motifs. Occasionally, finely
wrought applied decoration w ould be used.
Peach Blow: When a ‘Peach Bloom’
coloured Chinese porcelain vase was sold
for $18,000 in 1886, this caused such a
sensation that products labelled ‘Peach
Bloom’ or —slightly changed ‘Peach
Blow’ attracted many sales. ‘The glaze on
the vase was described as being the colour
of ‘crushed strawberries’. The magic of
the name attracted the attention of manu-
facturers of coloured art glasses, who tried
to devise new types suitable for this name.
Hobbs Brockunicr & Company of Wheel-
ing, West Virginia, produced such a glass
and called it ‘Wheeling Peach Blow’.
Replicas of the ‘Morgan’ vase were made,
like the example illustrated, in both glossy
and acid finishes. The moulded Stand with
its five-headed griffin is in an unimportant-
quality amber glass, hut the vase itself is
made of white opal glass plated with 1
transparent amber glass, made heat-sensi-
tive with gold salts. Reheating caused the
glass to strike a ruby colour, shading to
yellow or amber.
The Mt. Washington Glass Company
filed trade-name papers on the terms
‘Peach Blow’ and ‘Peach Skin’ through
Frederick S. Shirley in 1886. As a
colourant for their new products Shirley
substituted a small amount of cobalt or
copper oxide, instead of oxide of uranium
as in making Burmese. This produced a
homogeneous glass shaded pale grey-blue
to a delicate rose tint in the reheated
portions. When plunged in acid the surface
acquired an all-over slightly grey cast. As
it is a single-layered glass, the shading is
the same on the inside as on the exterior.
The Mt. Washington Peach Blow wares
were manufactured in similar shapes to
their Burmese ware. Moulded and applied
decoration were used, as well as gilding
and enamelling. The example illustrated
shows the ‘Queen’s’ design, as ordered by
Queen Victoria from the firm. The pattern
is of conventionalised flowers in raised
enamel, much of the decoration done in
pure gold reduced with acids.
The success of its Amberina glasses caused
the New England Glass Company to
experiment further with heat-sensitive
glasses. One of the resulting products was
patented by Edward D. Libbey in 1886
and called at first ‘Wild Rose’, later ‘Peach
Blow’. It is a single-layered glass shading
down from red to white in the lower part
of the piece. To produce it, an opal glass
was combined with a gold-ruby glass in
one pot. When a vessel had been formed,
reheating produced the rose colouring in
the required parts. Glasses made from this
metal were moulded, decorated with gild-
ing and enamelling and also acidized to a
satin finish. Occasionally, they would be
left in the original glossy state. The vase
illustrated was decorated by Joseph Locke
for his daughter Nora. The etched reliel
designs covering the surface of the glass
have been outlined and highlighted with
gold traceries and a dark brown mineral
stain.
At about the same time that the U.S.A.
glass-making firms were experimenting
with heat-sensitive glasses, both Thomas
Webb & Sons and Stevens & Williams of
England manufactured shaded wares
which they termed ‘Peach Glass’ or ‘Peach
Bloom’. Webb’s Peach Glass was cased,
the inner layer being creamy coloured with
a slight ly greenish cast in the upper portion.
It is similar in appearance to Hobbs
Brockunier & Company’s ‘Wheeling Peach
Blow’. Stevens & Williams of Stourbridge
produced a glass called ‘Peach Bloom’
which was also very much the same in
appearance. The English Peach glasses
were produced in both glossy and acid
finishes, and arc frequently found with
elaborate gold decoration on both finishes.
Occasionally, Webb’s Peach Glass will
have the Webb incised mark on the base;
Stevens & Williams ware also sometimes
bears a mark under the foot.
The Boston & Sandwich Glass Company,
Sandwich, Mass., manufactured a glass
known as ‘Sandwich Peach Blow’. This
was a single-layered glass, strawberry ice
cream pink in shading, often found in
moulded and twisted swirl decoration; see
the example above, which also has the
characteristic thorn handle of the period.
Overlay decorations in a camphor or
greyish colour are quite usual, the com-
plete piece having an acid finish. Many-
other types of glass are loosely termed
‘Peach Blow’, but basically, apart from a
slight variation in colour shading, the
products can be summarised as follows:
Webb and Wheeling Peach Blow are
always lined, but Mt. Washington, New-
England and Sandwich Peach Blow are
never lined. The Bohemian manufacturers
soon cashed in on the vogue of Peach Blow
wares, producing far cheaper glasses,
which forced the better products off the
markets, though their wares in no way-
resembled those made in America and in
England.

The Regency style of cutting can be
regarded as the classical standard of
British cut glass. It was not long to survive,
however, for in the new designs of 1825-30
there was a change from mitre-cutting to
flat-cutting or surface slicing in a vertical
pattern, as opposed to the horizontal
patterns of previous years. Horizontal
bands of diamonds were replaced as
decoration by a vertical arrangement of
broad hollow flutes, ‘pillared’ flutes, or flat
vertical facets. The essentials of this new
style can be seen in the pattern drawings
of about 1830 of Samuel Miller, foreman
cutter at the Watcrford glass-works in
Ireland. The style may have started in the
cutting shops of Birmingham. Apsley
Pellatt at the Falcon Glasshouse in South-
wark, London, was producing vessels with
vertical arrangements of fine diamond
panels about 1820. The decanter illus-
trated shows pillar-cutting of about the
toco’s.
The broad-fluted style of cutting was
international, with overtones of the early
18th century, and was especially associated
with the Budermeter glass of Central
Europe. About the same time as this style
of cutting appeared in England, the shape
of glass became more angular and straight-
sided, which was suitable for the new form
of decoration. Decanters, particularly,
changed from the barrel shape to a
cylindrical shape with vertical sides. This
remained the characteristic style of the
1830’s and the early 1840’s. Some elabora-
tion on the style took place on the better
pieces so that flutes would have multiple
profiles and would alternate with panels of
mitre-cutting. Arched patterns became
fashionable around 1840; often complex
in detail, they still retained the strongly
vertical tendency of style. The decanter
illustrated is a good example of the arched
decoration of the 1840’s, with mitre-
cutting enclosed by the arches.
CUT-GLASS DECANTER
By Apsley Pellatl, England, 1851
Ht. 311 mm (12-25 11,1
During the 1830’sand 1840’s glass-makers
in England began to appreciate once more
the curves and rounded shapes one could
attain with glass. Water carafes and
decanters began to have spherical bodies,
and champagne glasses with the new-
hemispherical bowl were introduced.
Wine-glasses now had ogee-shaped and
bill-shaped bowls, and cutting consisted
of plain facets running through from the
bowl to the stem. The spherical carafes and
decanters were often cut with ‘printies’ or
rows of large shallow facets. The decanter
illustrated, made by Apsley Pellatt in
London in 1851, has these rounded
hollows on the body of the vessel. Occas-
ionally heavy mitrc-cutting was used, but
the tendency was to decorate these boldly
curving shapes with engraving as opposed
to cutting. The period of common use for
these shapes in England coincided with the
eclipse of the technique of cutting in the
1860’s and 1870’s.
CUT-GLASS DECANTER
England, about 1850. lit. 381 mm (15 in.)
The Glass Excise in England was removed,
after much agitation, in 1845. Glass could
now be made to any thickness without fear
of taxation. One result was a revival in
interest in deep mitre-cutting, where the
glass was thicker and the cutting deeper
than ever before. The decanter illustrated
is a good example of this. Large-scale
mitre-cutting was to be a feature of this
mid-ioth century work. Intricate curvi-
linear designs became more common, and
the actual shapes of the vessels were freer
and had more variety. Contemporary
engravings illustrated much of the intri-
cately cut glass on display at the Great
Exhibition of 1851. Objects that have
survived to the present day show that the
glasses were not quite the ‘prickly mon-
strosities’ they appeared to be in 19th-
century engravings. Mention should be
made of the firm of F. & C. Osier of
Birmingham, who produced enormous
cut-glass centrepieces for this and other
exhibitions, and for eastern potentates
CUT-GLASS BOWL.
Decorated by E. Hammond, Stevens & Williams,
England, about 1895. Diam. 419 mm (16-5 in.)
After the 1851 Exhibition, cut glass was
largely disregarded for many years in
England. During the later 1850’s, 1860’s
and 1870’s, spherical vessels with en-
graved decoration were the fashion. Some
cut glass was always made in this period,
but without any great originality of
thought so far as the design was concerned.
Pressed glass imitations of cut glass also
spurred the reaction against real cut glass.
The intellectual set were against it on
aesthetic grounds from the middle of the
century. In John Ruskin’s words ‘all cut
glass is barbaric’ (Stones of Venice Vol. II
(1853)). Glass fashions at this period were
more or less international, so the eclipse of
cut glass also took place in Central Europe,
France and the U.S.A. at the same time.
However, it came internationally to the
fore again in the 1880’s and 1890’s. In the
pattern books of British manufacturers for
that period the new designs show cutting
as elaborate as was technically possible.
CUT-GLASS BASKET
Stevens & Williams, England, about 1880
Ht. 175 mm (688 in.)
Glass-cutters in England in the 1880’s and
1890’s aimed at a mathematical precision
in their work. Technical improvements
helped them to achieve this, so that even
shapes that were difficult to decorate with
cutting, such as the cut-glass basket
illustrated, became a commercial proposi-
tion. Cut-glass objects that aspired to lesser
heights were square-section toilet bottles
and whisky decanters with ball stoppers,
which were decorated all over with dia-
mond mitre-cutting. Cut glass was looked
upon as the ‘old legitimate trade’ by glass-
makers, and tended to a conservatism in
design, yet the variety of new shapes in
these years was in line with the freedom
of the fancy-coloured glassware that was
being produced, This decoration became
once more the symbol of social and
material success, and was much patronised
by the middle and upper classes. Pressed
glass imitations were no longer the threat
they had been.
DECANTER IN CLEAR COLOURLESS GLASS WITH CUT
DECORATION
Bakewell, Page & Bakewell, Piltsburgh, U.S.A., 1825
The earliest known specimens of American
cut glass date from 1824, although evi-
dence does exist to indicate that cutting
may have been practised even earlier than
this date. Motifs that were used exten-
sively were flutes, panels, stars and plain
geometric bands. The cut decoration was
hand-polished on wooden wheels, which
gave it a softer lustre than that given by the
later high-speed wheel polishing or acid
bath. North American glass factories that
produced cut glass in the early 19th
century were the Bakewell (Company of
Pittsburgh, the New England Glass Com-
pany, and the Boston and Sandwich Glass
Company. By 1830, the American glass
factories were producing enough glass to
encourage the government to stop foreign
imports, and in that year a high Federal
tariff was levied against imports from
Europe. The Baldwin Bill severely limited
imports, resulting in a boom in the
American glass industry.
COVERED VASE IN CLEAR COLOURLESS GLASS WITH RED
FLASHING AND CUT DECORATION
Probably the New England Glass Company, U.S.A.,
about 1845. Ht. 756 mm (2975 in.)
The new tariff laws of 1830 made the
manufacture of fine tableware in America
especially profitable, and by 1840 at least
81 glass-houses were in operation. In West
Virginia, in 1864, a new glass metal was
developed. Instead of the expensive and
brilliant lead glass, a less costly soda-lime
glass was developed, which although it did
not have the ring or rich appearance of lead
glass, was admirably suited to the great
variety demanded by the American public.
With the introduction of this new metal,
American cut glass was even more threat-
ened by cheaper pressed glass imitations.
Cut glass manufacturers were driven to
using the pressed techniques, or else to
producing cut-glass items that could not
be duplicated on the pressing machine. In
this middle period of American glass-
making (1830-80) cutting continued the
use of the flute, cross-hatching, fan, and
diamond motifs, though with a greater
profusion than in the earlier period. All the
glass, however, subordinated decoration
to the shape of the glass.
SEGMENT OE PI-ATE IN CLEAR COLOURLESS GLASS
WITH CUT DECORATION
T. G. Hawkes& Co., U.S.A.
The ‘brilliant’ period of American glass-
making (c. 1880-1915) was so called be-
cause of the fashion for brilliant cut glass,
which became a symbol of social prestige,
its opulence admirably suited to the
formality of the age. The deep-cut patterns
favoured motifs such as the mitre, the fan,
the notched prism, the single star and the
‘hob-star’. A very brilliant lead glass was
used which, in conjunction with the deep
cutting, produced an effect of extreme
richness and crackling brightness which
has to be seen to be fully appreciated. From
the beginning the glass-cutters tended to
cover most of the’surface of the piece with
their decoration. After the turn of the
century the embellishment became even
more elaborate, and the many firms vied
with each other in creating complicated
patterns, completely subjugating form to
ornament. Social and economic factors led
to the manufacturers pricing themselves
out of existence after World War I.
VASE WITH CUT DECORATION IN BLUE-GREEN GLASS
CASED WITH COLOURLESS GLASS
Use Schargc-Ncbel, Germany, 1064
Ht. 208 mm (82 in.)
The heavy, clear colourless glass that was
created in the Bohemian-Silesian area in
the late 17th century provided the stimulus
for a spectacular development in the art of
cutting as well as engraving. Glass so
decorated was soon being produced in all
the German-speaking countries, and by
the 18th century was being exported all
over the world. In the 19th century the
Bohemian factories adopted the English
style of heavy cutting with great success,
and even today cut wares form a large part
of their export wares. Bohemia has pro-
vided the finest cutters and engravers for
countries which have a less firm tradition
in glass-making. Modern German glass
shows the same quest for simplicity which
is noticeable in Finland, Sweden and
Denmark, and the glass-makers have
returned to the basic qualities of glass and
glass-blowing. This is reflected in the
simple lines and sensitive cutting of the
vase illustrated. It is in bluish-green glass
with a clear, colourless casing, the cut
decoration forming a window-like pattern.
VASE WITH  DECORATION
By Pavel lllava, Czechoslovakia, 1959
A fresh stylistic impulse reached the glass
factories of Bohemia in the first decade of
the twentieth century, which was to change
their traditional attitudes to decoration.
The impulse came from Vienna, where the
architect and designer Josef Hoffmann
(born 1870) had become a powerful influ-
ence. He was an early pioneer of a Func-
tionalist style in decoration and advocated
the use of basic geometric figures like the
square and circle for designs. Through his
work at the Wiener Kunstgewerbeschule
(Viennese School for Applied Arts) where
he taught, he popularised heavy, angular
forms. His style of purely geometric
ornament was transmitted to the Bohemian
glass industry by way of the schools for
glass-making and decoration in Haida and
Steinschonau. After the political revolu-
tion in 1948 the tradition for Bohemian cut
crystal continued, though softer patterns
were favoured over the old rigid cut-glass
designs. Pavel Hlava (born 1924) is best
known for his cut and engraved glass.
The Techniques of Taking Away
DISH WITH FACET-CUTTING AND ‘DIAMOND-POINT-
ENGRAVING
Germany (exported from Egypt ?), 2nd century A.D.
Ht. 6t mm (25 in.)
Dxamnnd-Potnl Engraving: Kngraving
glass with a diamond point was a technique
practised in Italy from before the middle
of the 16th century. Centuries earlier than
this, during the period of the Roman
Empire, engraving in the same style was
being produced. Some sharp instrument
not unlike a diamond point must have been
used; the results arc rather rougher, but
the similarities in technique cannot be
denied. ‘The first instance of this type of
engraved bowl was found in a grave of the
late 1st century A.D. on Siphnos in the
Aegean. However, it is not until the later
2nd century A.D. that a school of such
work can be recognised. The pieces are
colourless, clear glass bowls bearing myth-
ological and genre scenes in facet-cutting
with ‘diamond-point’ engraving for the
details. Many of the bowls have Greek
inscriptions giving the names of the
persons depicted, and all have a curvilinear
engraved band, usually just below the rim.
SEGMENT OE PLATE ENGRAVED IN DIAMOND-POINT
Willi GILDED AND FILIGREE DECORATION
Venice, mid-ihthcentury, Diam. 275 mm(10s in.)
Venetian cristallo glass, with its brittle
soda-lime constitution, was particularly
suited to the technique of diamond-point
engraving. When the diamond point was
pressed against the glass, this took the
impress with precision, yet still allowed
much treedom of movement to the en-
graver. However, although the technique
was practised in Italy, it was never as
popular there as on the glass of Venetian
type (Jacon de Vemse) found in other
European countries, notably in Holland
and also Hall-in-the-Tyrol. The diamond-
point engraving was usually used in con-
junction with gilded decoration. Dishes
with fantastic birds and long-tailed mon-
sters, as in the dish illustrated, were
produced, as well as those with coiled
foliage and coats of arms. The dish shown
is in clear, colourless glass with granular
gilding and a filigree network, as well as
diamond-point engraving. Dragons, birds
confronting a mask and crossed Papal
Keys form part of the engraved decoration.
GOBI II WITH DIAMOND-POINT INGKWING
Attributed to Jacopo Verzelini, Km/land, 1581
iii 210 mm (8-ag in.)
A group ol diamond-point-engraved glas-
ses has commonly been attributed to
Jacopo Verzelini (1522-1606), a Venetian
who came to England from Antwerp in
1571. In 1575 he obtained a privilege from
Queen Elizabeth I for a period of twenty-
one years which gave him the sole right to
make glasses after the Venetian style in
England, and forbade the importation of
foreign glass. In 1592, when he was
seventy, he gave up glass-making and
retired to Downe in Kent, where he died
at the age of 84. All the glasses ascribed to
him are large goblets of various proportions
with hollow moulded or gadrooned knops
on the stems. The goblet illustrated is in
clear, colourless glass with a slight greenish
tinge and diamond-point engraving on the
straight-sided bowl. The engraving on
Verzelini glasses has been attributed to
Anthony de Lysle, an engraver of pewter
and glass who is thought to have come
from France.
BOUQUET  IN DARK BLUE GLASS ENGRAVED WITH
11II DIAMOND POINT AND GILDED
Hall-in-the-Tyrol,
Ht. 202 mm (7-95 in.)
Diamond-point engraving was a charac-
teristic form of decoration at an important
glass-house at Hall-in-the-Tyrol. This
was started in 1534 and flourished in the
third quarter of the 16th century. It was
under the direction of Sebastian Hoch-
stetter, an Augsburg merchant, and event-
ually came under the patronage of the
Archduke Ferdinand. The articles pro-
duced by this works were in blue, green,
and clear and colourless glass, with dia-
mond-point engraving and (often dam-
aged) lacquer painting and lacquer gilding.
In the last third of the 16th century most
European glass-making countries were
producing glasses similarly decorated and
diamond-point engraved. Scrolled arab-
esque foliage, borders of chain or guilloche
pattern, hatched ‘ladder-borders’, and
borders of single formal leaves or of crest-
ing are usually found on all these glasses.
Obviously, these could not all be the work
of the same hand, but more probably the
work of a craftsman from Hall and his
pupils.
‘ROYAL OAK GOBLET’, ENGRAVED IN DIAMOND POINT
England, 1663. Ht. 143 mm (5-63 in.)
Few glasses survive from the period when
the Duke of Buckingham (1628-87) to°k
over from Sir Robert Mansell the making
of fine glass in the Venetian style in
England. The most important glass to
survive is this goblet, engraved in diamond
point with a portrait of Charles II
surrounded by engraved oak branches
with the inscription ‘Royal Oak’. There
are also portraits of Charles and his wife,
Catherine of Braganza and the Royal Coat
of Arms on the reverse, with the date 1663.
The metal is greenish-brown and the style
is facon de Venise. The glass was probably
made to commemorate the marriage of
Charles and Catherine in 1663. Another
famous glass of the same period is the
‘Exeter Flute’, probably made for the
coronation of Charles II. It stands 17
inches high, with a portrait of Charles II,
a sprouting oak stump and the inscription
‘God Bless King Charles the Second’ in
diamond point on the fluted bowl.
HOWL, DIAMOND-POINT-ENGRAED
Probably Savoy Glass-house, England, c. 1676
Hi. 98 mm (1-85 in.)
GOBI.r.T ENGRAVED IN DIAMOND POINT, SIGNED
‘WM. VAN HEEMSKERK’
Netherlands, 1686. Ht. 200 mm (788 in.)
(See alio colour photograph 22)
The bowl illustrated is one of a pair found
in 1037 aI Tring. They are known as the
‘Buggins’ Bowls’, since they depict the
arms of Butler Buggin of North Cray,
Kent, and his wife Winifred Burnett of
Leys, Aberdeen. They were married in
1676, the year that George Ravenscroft of
the Savoy Glass-house in London estab-
lished his glass-of-lead. However, it was
not until the following year that the Glass
Sellers’ Company allowed him to seal his
glasses with a raven’s head seal, so the
Buggins’ Bowls must have been made
prior to this. These heavy lead-glass bowls
have an almost modern look to them, due
to the absence of the intricate cutting that
was to become so characteristic of later
English lead glass. The diamond engrav-
ing on the bowls belongs to the tradition of
the past, since the technique is more
suited to the earlier thin-walled vessels of
the soda-lime type of glass.
In 17th-century Holland diamond-point
engraving was especially fashionable as a
pastime amongst amateurs, many of whom
became very skilled. Two famous names
are Anna Roemcrs Visschcr (1583-1651)
who decorated green glass Romers with
(lowers, fruit and insects, calligraphy and
inscriptions in Roman capital and Greek
letters, and Willcm Jacobsz van Hecms-
kerk (1613-92), a cloth merchant, poet and
dramatist of Leiden, who practised calli-
graphy on glass, mainly bottles, usuall\
adding his signature and the date. Exam-
ples of his work date from between 1648
and 1690. It is thought that much of the
diamond-point engraving found on Eng-
lish glasses of this period is probably
Dutch work. Up to this time Holland had
been producing Venetian-type cristallo
glass, but towards the end of the 17th
century she began to make ‘flint glass
ranglaise’. Possibly as a result, by the
1690’s wheel-engraving replaced diamond-
point engraving as the popular form of
decoration.
WINE-GLASS, ENGRAVED IN DIAMOND
POINT
England, mid-i8ih century
The group of vessels engraved in diamond
point known as ‘Amen’ glasses forms a
sub-division of the type called Jacobite
glasses. These were used to toast ‘The
Cause’ by the clubs and societies which
fostered Jacobite sentiments in England in
the 18th century. ‘Amen’ glasses arc
engraved in diamond point with a royal
crown, the cipher IR and RI entwined, and
the figure 8, together with either two or
four verses of the Jacobite anthem, ending
with the word ‘Amen’. They are essentially
private glasses, used for expressions of
loyalty to James and Prince Charles
Edward, and occasionally Prince Henry.
Some arc dated, like the Dunvegan Castle
glass, 1747, and the Mesham and the
Drummond Castle glasses, 1749. In the
1930’s some good forgeries of ‘Amen’
glasses were put on the market. Jacobite
glasses have been in such demand that all
the various types have been reproduced by
forgers.
GOBLET, STIPPLE-ENGRAVED BY FRAN.N GREENWOOD
Glass, English; engraving, Dutch, dated 1728
Ht. 210 mm (8-25 in.)
Stipple Engraving: For the technique of
stippling, grouped and graded dots were
engraved with a diamond point on the
surface of a glass object, the dots repre-
senting the highlights of the design. The
diamond point was set in a handle which
may have been gently struck with a small
hammer to produce a single dot on the
glass. In the better examples of stippling
the decoration can be compared to a deli-
cate film breathed upon the glass. Frans
Greenwood, a native of Rotterdam,
brought the art of stippling to its greatest
heights in the first half of the 18th century.
Born in 1680, he died in 1762, and was
apparently of English descent. He was
actually an amateur glass-engraver, who
from 1726 held an official post in Dor-
drecht. Nevertheless, he produced a quan-
tity of stippled glasses, often signed and
dated, and usually copying prints after
contemporary paintings. A typical example
is the light baluster glass illustrated, which
depicts a man holding a Rotner signed
‘F. Greenwood 1728′.
Glass, Knglish; engraving, Dutch, about 1790
Laurence Whistler, England, H15-;
Olhcr artists contemporary with Green-
wood also practised the art of stippling.
The best-known names are Aert Schou-
man, G. H. Hoolart and J. van den Blijk.
In the last forty years of the 18th century
stipple-engraving was done by numerous
artists, the most famous of them being
David Wolff in Holland, whose name has
become synonymous with the technique.
He was born in 1732 at ’s-Hcrtogcnbosch
and married in 1762 at The Hague, living
there until his death in 1708. The glass
illustrated shows the portraits of William
V of Orange and his wife, Fredcrica
Wilhelmina Sophia of Prussia. In the 19th
century Andries Melort of Holland (1779-
1849) copied in stipple on to Hat sheets of
glass the work of Dutch painters. D. H. de
Castro (d.1863), a chemist of Amsterdam,
revived the technique of stippling in the
Wolff manner in the mid-19th century,
and more recently E. Voet and others in
I lolland have used the technique.
Since the last World War Laurence Whist-
ler (b.1912) of England has concentrated
upon the art of stippling glass. His designs
are highly personal and imaginative. I le
started his engraving in an unusual way,
for during the 1930’s he used to amuse his
friends and himself by scratching lines of
poetry on windows in the Elizabethan
manner. Later he developed his skill to
engrave wine-glasses, each design being
specially made for a rich and aristocratic
person. At this stage he was employing
diamond-point engraving, frequently us-
ing genuine eighteenth-century wine-
glasses on which to practise his art. His
designs were of the Baroque tradition,
with emblems and allegorical allusions as
favourite themes. In his later work Whis-
tler has also designed the glasses them-
selves, which he decorates so that form and
decor become as one. Most of these glasses
are made for him at Whitefriars.

TRANSLUCENT WINE GLASS IN THE
CAMEO TECHNIQUE
Rinnan Empire, possibly isi century A.I).
Hi. 62 mm (2-44 in.)
PORTLAND VASE IN DARK AND OPAQUE
GLASS, CAMEO-CUT
Roman Empire, late isl century B.C. or early isi
century A.I). III. 245 248 mm (0-65 075 in.)
Cameo Class: This technique is a mixture
of both wheel-cutting and engraving, and
in the later period, of acid etching. This
art, certainly practised by the Romans, in
their glass-houses at Alexandria, was
brought to such perfection between the 1st
century B.C. and 1st century A.D. that
glasses like the Portland Vase could be
produced. It is possibly the most dramatic
form of abraded decoration on a vessel. At
least two layers of differently coloured
glasses were needed for vessels of cameo
glass. These would be carved through to
the under-layers by the lapidary’s wheel.
Roman cameo glass (also called verre
double) was usually made up of translucent
white glass cased on to a darker ground of
blue glass, which was then carved with
ornamental designs or mythological or
genre scenes. The scene depicted on the
blue and white glass cup illustrated is a
mythological scene devoted to the worship
of Priapus, a fertility god.
Roman cameos form only a small group of
Roman glass products, bui they rank high
amongst the achievements of the great
glass-makers of this period. Possibly the
most famous of all Roman cameos is the
Portland vase, said to have been found in
1582 in a sarcophagus on the Appian Way
near Rome. It was bought by the British
Museum from the Duke of Portland in
1045. To make it, two gathers of glass, one
cobalt blue, one opaque white, were fused
together and probably blown and shaped
as one. This would have to have been very
carefully annealed (cooled under con-
trolled conditions), for if the rate of
cooling on cither face was even slightly
different, the glass would shatter. When
annealed, the glass would have been
marked with the desired decoration, and
the larger unwanted areas of white glass
ground away with heavy wheel abrasion to
the blue underneath.
OVAIL CAMEO (WITH A DEMONSTRATION OF HOW IT
WAS MADE)
Roman Empire, 41b century A.D.
Ht. 41 mm (163 in.)
The delicate work necessary to finish off
the figures on a cameo would probably
have been accomplished with fine wheel
abrasion, since even at this early period it
was possible for wheels the size of a
pinhead to be made for fine work. The
manner of carving was very much akin to
the carving of a layered gem-stone such as
onyx or banded agate. The changes in
thickness of the opaque or translucent
white glass layer brought about by the
differences in the depth of the carving
produced subtle tonal variations. The
illustration shows the various stages a
Roman glass-maker would go through to
produce the cameo of a youth’s head and
shoulders. First the two layers of glass
were fused together, then the oval shape
cut out; the main areas of white which
were not needed were then removed, then
the finer details were filled in.
FI.ASK WITH CAMEO CUT DECORATION
Persia, oth-iolh century A.D. Ht. 150 mm (59 in.)
Between the period of Roman cameo-
working to the great revival of the tech-
nique in the 19th century, it is often
assumed that no such work was carried
out. This is not quite the case, for cameo
glass was certainly made in Egypt and
Persia in the 9th and 10th cerituries A.D.
Complete pieces have been found from
those countries, and fragments of cameo
glass of the same period have been found
in Samarra. The overlay glass is either
coloured green or blue. The flask illus-
trated is an outstanding example of Persian
camco-cut work. It is in colourless glass,
cased with green depicting the form of a
hare, the articulation of the joints being
cut away to the colourless glass beneath.
This cameo glass formed part of the school
of relief-cutting which flourished in Persia
and probably Mesopotamia in the 9th and
10th centuries. Cameo glass was also
produced in China well before the 19th
century.
John Northwood, born in Stourbridge,
England, in 1837, was the first, and lead-
ing, exponent in England of the art of
cameo glass. After completing his famous
relief-carved ‘Elgin’ vase, he was commis-
sioned by Phillip Pargeter of the Red
House Glassworks near Stourbridge to
produce a copy of the Portland vase. He
did this successfully, and followed it up by
producing his ‘Milton’ vase and later his
famous ‘Pegasus’ or ‘Dennis’ vase, com-
missioned by Thomas Wilkes Webb,
which is illustrated here. Members of the
Northwood School included his own son
John II, who produced works in the
cameo technique. During the early years
of English cameo glass, (.1870 to 1880,
pieces were carved mainly with hand
tools, and each was normally the work of
an individual artist. To supply public
demand a quicker method for production
had to be found and thus the engraving
wheel came to be used, and the production
became a co-operation between designer,
etcher and engraver.
This new ‘commercial’ production of
English cameo glass lasted roughly from
1880 to 1890, and on the whole the results
tended to be good. Stevens 8c Williams of
Brierley Hill and Thomas Webb & Sons
of Stourbridge produced the greatest
amount of cameo work in this period.
Besides the John Northwood school there
existed a second school of cameo glass
artists at the firm of Hodgetts, Richardson
& Company of Wordsley. The two most
important artists there were Alphonse
Lechevrel and Joseph Locke. Alphonse
Lechevrel, a Frenchman, was taken on by
the firm to instruct a small group of men
in the art of carving glass cameos and was
one of the first to follow John Northwood
in this difficult technique. Lechevrel had
already made his name as a medalist, and
had a good grounding in figure, floral and
geometric designs. A few of his pieces of
cameo glass survive, including the vase
illustrated.
CAMEO GLASS VASE, RUBY BODY
Ctrved by Joseph Locke, New England Glass
Company, U.S.A., c. iMg
Alphonse Lechevrel’s most promising
pupil was Joseph Locke, a perfectionist in
whatever medium he attempted, an accom-
plished glass technologist, a finished pain-
ter, engraver, etcher, sculptor and inven-
tor. When eventually he came to be
employed by Hodgetts, Richardson &
Company he produced his masterpiece,
the second copy of the Portland vase in
cameo glass, exhibited at the Paris Exhibi-
tion in 1878, where it won the Gold Medal
Award. Locke left Hodgetts, Richardson
& Company to work for Phillip Pargcter of
the Red House Glassworks, who had the
Northwood version of the Portland vase.
He went on to Webb & Corbetts, and then
left lor America in 1882 where he joined
the New England Glass Company of
Cambridge, Mass. Hecontinued his cameo
work in America, the vase illustrated being
an example of his work there. Occasionally
he used enamelling to embellish his cameo
work still further.
Carved by George Woodall, late 19th century
Ht. 220 mm (9 in.)
The brothers George and Thomas Woodall
had the good fortune to receive their early
training in cameo work from John North-
wood. Both were engaged by the firm of
Thomas Webb & Sons of Stourbridge to
work exclusively on cameo glass. The
Woodall school is noted for being by far
the most productive of the three schools
of English cameo glass. George had a
natural talent for figure composition, as
did his brother, though Tom seemed to
prefer decorative and floral patterns and
often executed the borders on their joint
works, usually signed ‘T & G Woodall’.
The early works of George Woodall were
mainly hand-carved, and his later pieces
mostly worked on the engraver’s wheel.
Much cameo glass was produced under
his direction by a large group of workers.
Tom and George Woodall and James
O’Fallon were the designers, though some
of their workers were quite capable of
producing and executing their own de-
signs.
‘lace-de-boheme’ cameo glass vase
Bohemia, (.1885. lit. 229 mm (9in.)
Most of the English cameo glass produced
between 1880 and 1890 was destined for
the American market. After 1890 demand
for this tine work dropped, because of the
influx of cheap imitation cameo work on
to the market. These cheaper pieces were
made by giving the glass a thin opal casing
and then applying the pattern to this
casing with acid-resisting ink; the article
was then plunged into a hydrofluoric acid
bath, which dissolved away all parts of the
casing not protected by the acid-resisting
ink. Thus an article was easily made with
a flat opal glass design in very shallow-
relief on a coloured background. Still
cheaper imitations came with ‘Florentine
Art Cameo’, and i.ace-dc-Boheme Cam-
eo’ made in Bohemia, which was simply
heavy white enamelling, often copying
English cameo designs, on a coloured or
satin glass body. ‘Mary Gregory’ glass,
described in the enamelling section, was
also a cheaper imitation of cameo work.
CAMEO GLASS VASE IMITATING  CARVED IVORY
WITH APPLIED GLASS WINDOW’S
Designed by Kretschman and decorated in gold and
enamel by Jules Barbc, Thomas Webb & Sons,
Kngland, 1-.1887
Thomas Webb & Sons of Stourbridge,
England, were the sole producers of a
novelty-type cameo glass which was made
in imitation of old carved ivory. Thomas
Wilkes Webb patented the process in 1887
and in the U.S.A. in 1889. An article made
of ivory coloured or opaque white glass
was etched with a shallow relief design,
which was deepened with an engraving
wheel. The design produced was wiped
clean and then rubbed with a brown or
other coloured stain; the stain made a dark
tint in the recesses of the design, and was
also apparent on the high points of the
design. The result made a piece of’cameo’
glass which looked like old carved ivory.
‘Tom and George Woodall used Oriental
and East Indian objets d’art as models for
this technique, and other members of the
Woodall team, Jules Barbc, Jacob Facer
and Nash, produced designs for this ware.
Both Stevens & Williams of Brierley Hill
and Thomas Webb & Sons of Stourbridge,
England, produced a glassware which was
known as ‘Dolce Relievo’ or ’soft relief. A
gather of clear coloured glass was picked
up on a first gathering of opaque white or
ivory-coloured glass, and the article was
fashioned in the normal way. When the
object had cooled, a design was painted on
the outer coloured glass, which was care-
fully etched away. This left various shad-
ings in shallow relief on the white or ivory
background. Any merit that the piece may
have depends entirely on the original
beauty of the design and on the skill of the
etcher. The vase illustrated, made at
Stevens & Williams, is one of the better
examples of the technique. Thomas Webb
& Sons were also responsible for cameo
glass pieces made to imitate 18th-century
Apart from beads, decorative plaques and
models of animals, very little glass was
made in China before the 5th century A.D.
As already mentioned, it is thought that
the secrets of glass-making were brought
to (ihina from the West in A.D. 435. Little
is known of Chinese glass-making during
the Sung and Ming periods. During the
Ch’ing period a glass workshop was
established in Peking in 1680 under the
patronage of the Kmperor K’afig Hsi, and
cameo-cut glass was featured amongst its
products. The most prolific period of
Chinese glass-making, however, comes in
the reign of the Kmperor Ch’ien Lung
(1735-95). The bottle illustrated is thought
to have come from this period, being in
opaque white glass with an overlay of red
glass depicting mounted warriors, build-
ings and nobles in a stage-like setting. The
effect of layered onyx or other semi-
precious stone was thus simulated, for the
Chinese seemed to be only interested in
glass in so far as it imitated more precious
materials.
CAMEO GLASS VASE IN PINK AND WHITE OPAQUE GLASS
Ml. Washington Glass Company, U.S.A., late
iQth century. Ht. 121 mm (475 in.)
Production of cameo glass in the U.S.A. in
this period was limited, not for lack of
expertise, but because of the high cost of
production. A great deal of English cameo
glass was of course being imported to the
States. However, some was made there,
the example shown being a pink and white
cameo of the Mt. Washington Glass
Company, New Bedford, Mass. The firm
also made blue and white cameo glass,
using the same relatively few patterns for
both. The outline of the ‘cameo’ decora-
tion is finely etched, but there any
resemblance to English cameo work ends,
for the decoration is produced solely by
the use of acid, and the effect of the design
is rather flat. On the other hand, some very
notable cameo work was produced in
America by the firm of Louis Comfort
Tiffany with Arthur J. Nash. Frederick
Carder certainly made traditional cameo
glass objects in England, and later, when
he worked in the U.S.A. he invented
Steuben ‘Acid Cutback’ glass, which is
allied to the cameo technique.
CAMEO GLASS VASE
Venice, Italy, last quarter of 10th century
Cameo glass was produced in Venice in the
late 19th century. It is not known who
produced these pieces, but their chief
characteristic is that they are made of
Venetian soda-lime metal, as opposed to
the heavy lead glass of English cameo
glass. This lighter glass, when used for
both the inner and outer layers of the
objects, gives the carving of the cameo a
more delicate but less distinct appearance.
Small details such as the carving of faces
were not easily achieved with the more
brittle metal. These pieces, all apparently
carved by the same artist, are in deep blue
glass cased by white opal glass. They
attempt to copy some of the ancient
Roman cameos, including the Portland
vase. Small alabastrons, vases, large and
small cups and saucers are copied from
ancient examples. The owners of the
cameos, Pauly & Cie of Venice, produced
a few pieces of cameo engraving on leftover
blanks from the late 19th century.
VASE IN CAMEO GLASS
Kmilc Galle, Nancy, France, end of ihe iqth century
I It 44S mm (17-63 in.)
French cameo glass has en entirely different
artistic feel from that of the meticulously
engraved English type. The French glass-
makers used acid etching to engrave their
designs on to blanks of cased coloured
glass, in a style originally intended to copy
oriental models. Emile Galle (1846 1004)
was the most prominent figure in the
production of French cameo glass. He
learned his trade at Mcisenthal, and then
had a more formal art education in Weimar,
followed by studies in the major museums
of London and Paris. He established his
own workshop for glass decoration in 1867.
With his father he began the regular
production of art glass in Nancy in 1874,
and continued until his death in 1004.
Strongly influenced by the art of Japan, he
took as his favourite subjects flowers,
insects and landscape designs, in contrast
to the figure subjects favoured by English
artists for cameo glass.
CASED-GLASS CAMEO VASE IN AUBERGINE,
WHITE
By Emile Galle, Nancy, France, iSgo 1000
The smaller details on Gallc’s cameo glass
were finished off on the engraving wheel.
The majority of his cased glass vases, with
a decoration of flowers and leaves, date
from after 1890. So-called ’standard Galle’
vases with conventional Art Nouveau
flower patterns in one colour against an
opaque white background as illustrated arc-
probably factory products, rather than
Galle’s personal handiwork. It is very rare
to find two identical pieces among the
massive output of his factory. Like most
French glass-makers of this period, he
usually signed his work. Even after his
death, when the factory continued under
the direction of Victor Prouve, the pro-
ducts were still signed ‘Galle’, hut a star
preceded the name, and production in
Gallc’s style certainly continued until
1913. Closest to Galle’s work came the
products of the firm of Daum in Nancy;
this concern was established by Jean
Daum Urol hers, Nancy, Franee, c. 1895
Jean Daum’s two sons, Auguste and
Antonin, were personally influenced in
glass-making by Emile Galle. They soon
(V.i890) began to produce articles decor-
ated with flowers and leaves in cased glass,
using on their works a monogram incor-
porating the Cross of Lorraine. Their
early productions of Art Nouveau glass
were very fine, and they continued to make
art glass until the First World War, but
their later work is of much poorer quality.
Once Galle died, his inspiration seemed to
die with him. Other makers of cameo glass
in Galle’s style were the factory of Lunc-
ville, near Nancy, and also Sevres, which
produced the designs of the firm of
Landier et Fils. Other lesser-known
workers in French cameo glass were De
Vez, Le Gras, Andre De Lattc, Edward
Michel, M. Walter, Alphonse G. Reyen,
Tessire du Motay, Kessler and Mareschal.
The technique of French cameo glass was
copied by many countries in Europe.
i \MH) glass vasi in KM) imhiiihu 111 ysn
By Tiffany, U.S.A., late i<)th century/early 20th
century. Hi. 146 mm (575 in.)
Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) joined
forces on a shareholding basis with Arthur
J. Nash, an English glass-maker, and other
investors. Nash later brought in his sons
A. Douglas and Leslie Nash. They oper-
ated the factory at Corona, Long Island,
New York, known as Tiffany Furnaces,
and later as Louis C. Tiffany Furnaces
Inc. When Tiffany left in 1924, it became
the A. Douglas Nash Co. Tiffany products
owed much to L. C. Tiffany from 1 he-
design point of view, but it was the Nashs’
practical knowledge of glass-making that
made them technically outstanding. One
of the products that must be mentioned
here is their cameo glass, which generally
consisted of two or more layers of glass.
The designs were painted on in acid-
resistant materials, then the object was
plunged into an acid bath, which revealed
the under layer or layers. The design was
finished off with engraving and polishing
tools.
VASE IN ‘ACID CUTBACK’
By Frederick Carder, Steuben Glass Works,
U.S.A., early 20th century. III. 305 mm (12 in.)
Frederick Clarder of the Steuben Glass
Works, Corning, New York, established
an etching room for glass at the works in
about 1006. He was familiar with the
etching process in connection with cameo
glass from his Stevens & Williams days in
Kngland, and he carved his cameo plaque
‘The Immortality of the Arts’ while
working under the tutelage of John North-
wood. Until about 1932 Carder produced
at Steuben a cameo-type glass which is
called ‘Acid Cutback’ by collectors. The
design was transferred to the glass by
means of a print made on paper in a ‘wax
ink’. The area of the glass not covered with
the pattern was painted with wax, to
protect it from the etching acid. The glass
was left in the acid bath for the time
required to etch the designs to the desired
depth. Two layers of glass were normally
used, the darker colour most frequently
being the outer layer, though occasionally
single-layer pieces were made.
COLOURLESS GLASS WITH CUT
DECORATION
Ireland, late iSth century. Ht. 13(1 mm (538 in.)
(See also colour photograph 21)
Cut Glass: To most people the term means
the type of deep wheel-cutting used on
Irish glass from the late 18th century
onwards, and also on modern cut wine-
glasses and containers. The popularity of
today’s cut-glass products is a legacy of the
great popularity this type of glassware
enjoyed in Kngland and America during
the 19th century. In this style of decoration
angular cuts are made into the vessel
which, when polished, act as prisms with
adjacent cuts, giving a very brilliant effect.
The glass blank would first be marked
with the pattern, a mixture such as white-
lead and gum water being used. Following
the design, deep cuts would be roughed in
against an iron wheel fed with abrasive
such as sand. Water-cooled stone wheels
which need no abrasive might be used to
add fine lines. The cuts could then be
polished by lead or wooden wheels, or,
after the second half of the 19th century,
by plunging the vessel into a mixture of
hydrofluoric acid and sulphuric acid.
waisted bowl in clear, colouri j.s.s glass, stained decanter in cut glass with mushroom stopper
yellow, vviiti cut decoration England, about 1820. Ht. 241 mm (0-5 in.)
Ireland, 1.1820-30. Diam. 143 mm (563 in.)
The years 1780 to about 1835 can be
described as the period of freedom for
Irish glass-making, when the trade was
unfettered by any serious restraints. It was
during this period that some of the most
notable work in cut glass was produced in
Ireland. The principal glass-house cities
were Dublin, Cork, Waterford and Belfast.
The common belief that Waterford glass
has a blue tint is entirely wrong; some
glasses made on the Continent in imitation
of the Waterford style are markedly blue
in colour, but the original Waterford glass
is clear and colourless. Objects made
included barrel-shaped and straight-sided
decanters, bowls and vases, often with a
turned-over rim and a domed foot, covered
bowls and jars with button finials, urns,
kettle-drum bowls, plates, bowls and
stands, ewers with swan neck handles, jugs
with rounded bodies, and serving dishes.
The cut decoration was mostly done by
English craftsmen, who emigrated to
Ireland after Free Trade had been de-
clared in 1780.
The historical impact of early 19th century
English cut glass can be compared to the
influence on glass-making that Venice had
in the 16th century or to that of the
engraved glass of Central Europe in the
17th and 18th centuries. The inability of
the Venetians, with their lighter soda-lime
metal, to copy cut glass led to their eclipse
as the main glass-making centre at this
period. The success of the French and
Belgian factories in copying English cut
glass was a main cause for their develop-
ment in the first half of the 19th century.
The United States of America quickly
took to cut glass, and even in Central
Europe the style could only be partially
resisted. Mitre-cutting, or the cutting of
V-section grooves into glass, was the
characteristic Regency style. The decan-
ters, like the illustrated one, were mostly
barrel-shaped, with rings applied to their
necks, and usually with ‘mushroom’-
shaped stoppers.
Kngland. probably the 1820’s. lit. 89 mm (3-5 in.)
in m dish i\ tit GLASS
Kngland. about 1820. Length 219 mm (8-6? in.)
The V-section grooves of the mitre-cutting
were usually in straight lines. The main
decoration on the glass was caused by the
intersection of these grooves at ninety or
forty-five degrees. The simplest decora-
tion, when the grooves met at ninety
degrees, was the production of a field ol
plain ‘diamonds’ or small pyramids of
glass. There were many variants of this
sort of decoration, but one of the most
popular was the field of intricate ’straw-
berry diamonds’ found on so many pieces.
The bowl illustrated is a typical example.
Since the middle of the iSth century the
geometrical cutting of the soft English
lead glass had absorbed many glass decora-
tors, but it was the styles of the early 19th
century that were to establish its lasting
popularity. Regency cut glass was in fact a
logical technical development from the
shallow facetted glass of the mid-i8th
century.
Regency cut glass subordinated the shape
of the vessel to the decoration. Its solidity
and sparkling appearance reflected the
ostentation that was prevalent in all the art
forms of the British Regency and Con-
tinental Empire styles. In addition to the
square-cut patterns, other designs on
vessels involved the use of radiating cuts.
Usually the base would be ’star-cut’, and
the edge of the vessel might have ‘fan-
cutting’ on each of a scries of semi-circular
projections. This can be seen in the oval
cut-glass dish illustrated. It is strange that
this style of decoration, which needed such
thick glass for its execution, should coin-
cide with the period of the Glass Excise.
Between 1745 and 1845 the various
governments sought to gain revenue by
taxing the glass output in England.
Strangely enough, the effect of the Excise
seemed to be the concentration of all the
glass-makers upon one current style of
clear glass with cut decoration.
The Techniques of Taking Away
Early 19th-century glass shapes can norm-
ally be distinguished from their late 18th-
century forerunners by their heaviness and
formality. The cut decoration was more
often arranged horizontally than vertically.
This is apparent on the cut-glass dish with
cover that is illustrated. It has generally-
been assumed that most cut glass was
made in Ireland, where until the mid-
1820’s there was no Glass Excise tax. This
cannot in fact be true, since there were
never more than ten factories in Ireland
producing decorative glass, whereas in
England they numbered about fifty. Apart
from a few special cases, it is virtually
impossible to distinguish between English
and Irish glass on the grounds of style or
of the glass used. When the Excise was
introduced into Ireland in 1825, that
country was producing Ј20,000 worth a
year of flint glass, compared with over
Ј20,000 worth in Scotland and Ј170,000
worth in England.
The tendency to call all cut glass ‘Irish’ or
‘Waterford’ probably reflects the way
research has been made into the subject.
Much has been written on the history of
the Irish factories in the early 19th
century, but very little has been done on
the much wider field of English cut glass
in this period. Wine-glasses or ‘rummers’
of the early 19th century in England
usually had convex or straight-sided bowls.
Short bucket shapes were common, as
well as the taller flute shape illustrated.
Stems were short, often with disc-shaped
knops. The intersecting mitre cutting used
so much on other vessels was considered
unsuitable for drinking glasses, so their
decoration usually consisted of flat vertical
facets towards the lower part of the bowl.
Jugs had become a popular form of glass-
ware but in Regency times they tended to
copy pottery shapes and did not have the
fluidity of form of true glass art.

covered goblet with engraved portrait ok carl
Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, by Franz Gondelaeh,
Germany, c. 1700.
Spillcr’s contemporary and pupil was
Jager, an outstanding glass-
engraver. He was born at Reichenberg in
Bohemia, appeared in Berlin in 1606 and
was made a member of the Berlin glass-
cutters’ guild in 1606. Both Spiller’s and
Jager’s glasses often show crisselling (a
network of tiny cracks in the glass), a
defect found in the Potsdam glass used at
the Berlin workshop. The third engraving
workshop to be set up for a German court
was that of Franz Gondelaeh (or Gunde-
lach) for the Court of the Landgrave Carl
of Hesse Cassel. Gondelaeh, sometimes
called the greatest German master of the
art, was born at Gross-Almerode in Hesse
in 1663 and becameJiirstlicheGIasschneider
to Carl in 1695. It is not known when he
died, but he was still described as Hof-
glasschneider at Cassel in 1716. He some-
times used Potsdam glass for his work,
occasionally marking his pieces with an
eight-rayed star.
It is only towards the end of the 17th
century that a genuine distinction between
glass-cutting and glass-engraving can be
made. For the first time it is obvious that
different types of equipment were being
developed for cutting and for engraving.
The glass-engraver’s equipment was light
enough at this period to be carried, where-
as the glass-cutter’s equipment, used for
facetting, intaglio (deep cutting) or rough-
ing out for finer engraving, was hardly
portable. The large interchangeable
wheels for cutting were rotated on a heavy
hand-turned cutting machine, a form of
equipment which survived until the
modern period. By the end of the 17th
century, water power was in use for turn-
ing the wheels, and was probably used to
do the all-over facetting as an obligatory
prelude to the engraving on glasses of
Bohemia and Silesia in the 18th century.
Intaglio or Hochschnitt cutting would not
have been possible without this extra
power.
The Bohcmian-Silcsiart glass-engraving
industry produced glasses that were event-
ually exported as far as Persia and the East,
as well as all over Europe. The Bohemian
workshops were predominant in the late
17th and early 18th centuries, but after
1725 Silesia overtook them in importance.
There were workshops in Schreiberhau,
Hermsdorf, Kynast, Warmbrunn, Peters-
dorf and Breslau, as well as other places in
the Hirschberger Tal. The finest Silesian
work occurs partly in the Rococo period,
when characteristic forms appear, such as
shell-shaped, lobed and scrolled cups,
which were frequently gilded as well. Most
of the work remains anonymous, but some
of the finest work is known to have been
done by an artist of Warmbrunn, Christian
Gottfried Schneider (1710-73). All other
German centres remained subordinate to
the Bohemian-Silesian workshops, but the
name of Anton Wilhelm Mauerl (1672-
¦737) of Nuremberg should be mentioned
for his work with its accent on Chinoiserie.
By the beginning of the 18th centur;
wheel-engraving as a decoration on glass
(often of English manufacture) was be-
coming established in popularity in Hol-
land. The chief exponent of the art there
was Jacob Sang, a Saxon who worked in
Amsterdam. Dutch wheel-engraving was
very German in style, and certainly at first
was the work of German craftsmen resi-
dent in Holland. Jacob Sang engraved and
signed a number of glasses with dates
between 1752 and 1769 during his stay at
Amsterdam. He was probably related to
Andreas Friedrich Sang, the Thuringian
glass-engraver. In 1738 A. F. Sang was
recorded at Weimar, as Hoch/iirstlich
sdchsiscke Glasschneider. His son was the
Brunswick Court glass-engraver, Johann
Heinrich Balthasar Sang. Wheel-engrav-
ing had already been practised in Holland
in the first half of the 18th century,
possibly by another member of the Sang
family.
WINE-GLASS ENGRAVED 165 mm (6-5 in.)
DRINKING GLASS IN COLOURLESS GlASS WITH
ENGRAVED DECORATION
John Frederick AmelungGlassworks, L.S.A. 1703
III. 220 mm (805 in)
A group of engraved glasses thai enjoys
great popularity with collectors comprises
the so-called Jacobite glasses, all engraved
with symbols of the Jacobite cause in
England. The various emblems include the
star, oak-leaf, butterfly, caterpillar, grub,
carnation, forget-me-not, lily-ot-the-val-
ley, daffodil, honeysuckle and sunflower.
The most important symbol, however, is
undoubtedly the Jacobite Heraldic Rose,
which may have six, seven or eight petals,
representing, it is thought, the Crown of
England. Other glasses have actual por-
traits of Prince Charles Edward, the Young
Pretender, engraved (not very skilfully) on
their bowls. The words FIAT, AUDEN-
TIOR UK) and REDEAT are often found
on these glasses. The exact significance of
each symbol, including buds in relation to
the roses, is the subject of much discussion,
bin no one yet knows all the answers. The
majority of the glasses have air-twist
stems, but baluster stems and opaque
twists are also lound.
Some of the most noteworthy engraved
glass of North America was produced at
John Frederick Amelung’s glass-works
which was established at New Bremen
near Frederick, Maryland, in 1784. Efforts
to establish a glass industry had been made
during the 17th century, notably at James-
town in Virginia, where the first attempt
was made around 1608. However, the first
successes in the business were scored
mainly by Germans and Englishmen in the
18th century, when several important
glass manufactories were started, the
Amelung glass-house being the most
successful. It operated for only one decade,
but its clear glass decanters, glasses and
goblets set a high standard. The glass
illustrated is European in style, showing a
sturdy form and restrained engraving,
with foliage and a finely drawn inscription
‘George Trisler’ and the date 170.!, en-
closed in the foliage. The shallow wheel-
engraving found on these glasses often
features commemorative inscriptions and
dales
The period of prosperity after the Napo-
leonic wars known in Germany as the
Biedermeierzeil brought about the revival
of the art of glass-engraving, particularly
in Bohemia. Massive feet and bold poly-
gonal facetting are characteristic of these
heavy engraved pieces. The commoner
examples arc somewhat clumsily engraved,
but the finer pieces are equal to anything
from the previous periods. Glass-engravers
tended to work independently and to move
about; thus Dominik Bimann (1800-57)
worked at Prague, but went to Franzens-
bad during the season, and August Bohm
(1812-90) visited England and America.
Romantic landscapes and hunting scenes
showing faithful perspective were popular.
The Pelikan family of Meistersdorf near
Kamnitz and the Simms of Jablonec were
also notable engravers in this style.
Engraving through a silver stained surface
to clear colourless glass was popular, as in
the goblet illustrated, which has engraved
panels flashed with clear yellow glass.
It is worth while taking a close look at 19th
century English wheel-engraving, since so
much of it is still to be seen. As Hugh
Wakefield points out, the early years of the
century could truthfully be called the
heyday of cut glass, and engraving was
only used where cutting could not reason-
ably be used on a glass vessel. Simple
wheel-engraved motifs appeared often
enough on wine-glasses, and larger vessels
might have lettering in the form of mottoes
and inscriptions. Floral and other plant
motifs were used effectively as in the loving
cup illustrated. On the other hand, repre-
sentatives of figures were unusual, and
appeared only on the more special pieces.
Difficult subject matters were avoided, and
it could be said that engraving in the early
years of the 19th century was considered
suitable only for commemorative pieces
and for the bowls of wine-glasses, where
cutting could not be used.
Kngraved by a member of the Wood family of
Brettell I ..me, Kngland, 1840-50
Hi. 209 mm (117; in.)
JUG WITH  DECORATION
Shown ai the 1851 exhibition by J. Ci. Green,
Kngland. Ht. 337 mm (13*25 in.)
In the early 1840’s surface stains were
being used in the Stourbridge area on
glassware, broad flute cutting being added.
The stain was normally ruby-red, derived
from copper rather than the yellowish-
brown given by silver. The bottle illus-
trated is ruby-red stained and was en-
graved by a member of the Wood family of
Brcttell Lane, near Stourbridge. The
bottle forms part of the movement in the
1830*1 and 1840’s, when the scope of
engraved work seems to have widened in
England. The Wood family had an im-
portant engraving shop in Stourbridge
around the 1840’s, and Thomas Wood was
established enough to produce an inde-
pendent display for the 1851 exhibition.
\i the firm of Thomas I lawkes in Dudley,
near Stourbridge, William Herbert and
the rest of his family were becoming noted
during the 1830’s for the engravings they
produced for the firm. It was soon to
become apparent that wheel-engraving
was a technique well suited to Victorian
taste.
Shapes popular for wheel-engraving in
Victorian times included globular decan-
ters and water carafes. These forms were
developed in the early years of Victoria’s
reign, and proved so suitable to the
technique of wheel-engraving that they
probably helped to popularise it. The
hemispherical champagne glass introduced
about this time could only be whccl-
engraved and not deep-cut. At the 1851
Exhibition the most significant engraved
glass was that exhibited by the London
dealers, particularly by the firm of J. G.
Green. Their ‘Neptune’ jug, a large Greek
oinochoe shape elaborately engraved, was
much illustrated at the time and is
illustrated here. The oinochoe shape be-
came very popular in the later part of tlu-
cent ury, but the most usual shapes for
engraving for the late 1850’s, 1860’s and
1870’s were footed ovoid shapes used lor
decanters, claret jugs and vases. These
were blown thinly, and offered a large ana
By Frederick E. Kny, Thomas Webb & Sons,
England, probably later 1870’s
Ht. 308 mm (12-13 in.)
The decanter illustrated was engraved by
the Bohemian Frederick E. Kny, one of
the most distinguished engravers in Eng-
land in the 1860’s, who remained prom-
inent for the rest of the century. He had a
separate workshop on the premises of
Thomas Webb & Sons at Stourbridge.
He, like other artists, favoured the well-
known three-lipped decanter shape for
engraving. This shape, as seen in the
illustration, with its high shoulder and
spherical stopper, often with a tiny ball
finial, was a result of the current admira-
tion for Greek pottery forms. It looked
best when blown thin, and called for the
lighter work of wheel-engraving for decor-
ation. The shape came into its fullest
popularity in the early 1870’s, appearing
in the Stevens & Williams pattern books in
January, 1871, and in the Thomas Webb
and Richardson firms at roughly the same
time. By the last decade of the century it
was one of the best-known international
shapes.
The Techniques of Taking Away
JIG WITH ENGRAVED FERN PATTERN
John Eord, Scotland, about the i88o’s
Hi. 247 mm (075 in.)
Another shape that was most popular for
wheel-engraving in England in the 1860’s
was the tankard-shaped water jug, with
straight, slightly tapering sides. This style
of jug was used for fine engraving until
near the end of the 19th century, but since
then the shape has become too common-
place for such elaborate treatment. Motifs
for engraving in the 1860’s were Renais-
sance arabesques and Greek-inspired de-
signs, while in the later 1860’s and 1870’s
naturalistic designs of flowers, birds and
hunting scenes became more common.
The fern patterns on the jug illustrated
originated with the Scottish firm of John
Ford of the Holyrood glass-works. To-
wards the end of the 1850’s an emigrant
Bohemian, J. H. B. Millar, set up a work-
shop for engraving glass in Edinburgh,
closely connected with the firm of John
Ford. He introduced the fern patterns at
the London exhibition of 1862 and they
remained very popular for a long period.
VASE WITH ‘ROCK CRYSTAL.’ ENGRAVING
by Frederick K. Kny, Thomas Webb & Sons,
Kngland, abou” 1880. Hi. 235 mm (0/25 in.)
WINE-GLASS WITH INTAGLIO FLORAL ENGRAVING
Slcvcns & Williams, Kngland, about 1000
Hi. 159 mm (625 in.)
A new style of decoration appeared in
England towards the beginning of the
1880’s, which was called ‘rock crystal’
engraving. What differentiated the new
technique from normal wheel-engraving
was that all parts of the work were
polished, instead of the engraving being
kept unpolished to contrast with the
surrounding surface. This uniformly
bright appearance led to a new approach
in the design of the engraving. Instead of
the engraving being a pattern on the glass,
it took over the whole surface of the vessel
and became deeper cut, and more in the
character of carving. The effect was an
even more sumptuous method of decorat-
ing English lead glass, in line with the
international trend for brilliant cut glass,
and it was also in keeping with the
simultaneous development of carved cam-
eo glass. The workshops of F. E. Kny
(see illustration) and of William Fritsche,
which were attached to Thomas Webb &
Sons, produced ‘rock crystal’ glass
throughout the 1880’s and 1890’s.
‘Rock crystal’ glass was produced in
France in this period, and possibly Thomas
Webb’s work was inspired by the work of
the French glass-makers. Stevens & Wil-
liams at Brierley Hill near Stourbridge
also produced ‘rock crystal’. In the early
1880’s there was a phase when ‘rock
crystal’ pieces were made to imitate
Chinese jades. The final fling for Victorian
engraving came with Stevens & Williams
intaglio work of the 1890’s, as in the wine-
glass illustrated. Intaglio is deep engraving
carried out on wheels that would normally
be used for cutting, a technique some-
where between cutting and engraving. The
names of John Northwood and Joshua
Hodgetts are particularly associated with
the development of this method. The
technique was worked out at the beginning
of the 1890’s, and was an established part
of the Stevens & Williams output by the
later 1890’s. It was also being used by
American firms, such as T. G. Hawkes of
Corning, New York.
Intaglio work was produced notably by the
firm of L. C. Tiffany at the factory at
Corona, Long Island, in the U.S.A.
towards the end of the ioth century and
the beginning of the present century.
Their ‘intaglio’ glass differed from English
intaglio, since besides referring to the
cutting and engraving of glass, the term
also referred to the practice of applying
contrasting coloured glass in the engraved
parts and re-cutting so that engraved work
appears on decorative inlays. The flower
and leaves on the vase illustrated have been
treated in this manner, being in contrast-
ing colours to the base glass. Glass that
had been cut or engraved either in intaglio
or in cameo relief by the Tiffany factory
was always referred to as ‘Carved’ in their
brochures and catalogues. The glass fac-
tory also produced simpler relief-cut
objects without colour contrasts and used
coppcr-wheel-cngraving on many of their
vases, bowls, lampshades and tablewares.
The finest achievement of Wilhelm v. Eiff
(1890-1943) was his work in high relief
(Hochschnitt) on glass. He raised it from a
miniature art, giving the technique the
dignity of sculpture. Von Eiff was the son
of a craftsman at the Goppingen branch
of the Wiirttembergische Metallwaren-
fabrik, and at a very early age mastered the
techniques of engraving both metal and
glass. He worked for a time in Lalique’s
jeweller’s studio, and also with the famous
glass-engraver Charles Michel in Paris. In
1913 he paid a short visit to the Art School
in Stuttgart, and in 1921 he worked for a
while with the glass designer Stephan
Rath. In 1922 he was appointed professor
in cutting and engraving on glass and
precious stones at the school in Stuttgart.
He had a great influence on his pupils, who
now can be found from Scotland to Japan,
doing work in many different ways, from
each other’s products as well as from v.
‘GIRLS PLAYING BALI-’
engraving by Edward Hald, Orrefors, Sweden, 1019
BOWL IN PALE BILE GLASS ENGRAVED WITH ANGEL
AND DANCING MAIDENS
By Simon Gale, Orrefors, Sweden. 1927
Hi. 160 mm (63 in.)
Of great importance to the history of art
glass were the appointments in 1916 and
1917 respectively of Simon Gate and
Edward Hald as designers to the glass-
works at Orrefors. Edward Hald (b. 1883)
was a painter who had studied with
Matisse in Paris, and had already designed
pottery for the factory at Rorstrand.
Orrefors, founded in 1898, is situated in
Smaland, the main glass-producing dis-
trict in Sweden. Here, Hald had to learn
the very basics of glass-making from K nut
Bergqvist, master glass-blower at the
factory from 1914. It was the engraved
glass produced at Orrefors which won the
factory its first international fame. There
was already an engravers’ shop at Orre-
fors, with Gustaf Abels at its head, before
Gate and Hald were appointed. As soon
as they settled in, they began to experi-
ment with this technique. Hald preferred
a more delicate approach to engraving
than Gate’s style, producing exquisite
objects like the vessel illustrated, directly
inspired by the art of Matisse.
Simon Gate (1883-1945) the first glass-
designer employed by the Orrefors glass-
works, was the son of a prosperous farmer
and trained as an artist in the grand
classical manner at the Academy in Stock-
holm. Like his contemporary Hald, he had
to learn glass-making from the beginning
when he joined Orrefors, and he concen-
trated first on the art of engraving. The
style of the early engraved work of the
Orrefors glass-works reflects the taste for
luxury products in prosperous post-war
Stockholm —an elegant nec—classicism.
Within this tradition both Gate and Hald
developed their own styles. Gate’s work is
noted for the heaviness and large dimen-
sions of the vessels, decorated in deep
carving with figure subjects from the
Bible, classical mythology and like sources.
It is claimed of Orrefors that no other
glass-works has had such an international
influence over glass-production. For the
first three decades of this century the
attention of the glass-works was directed
to the art of engraving glass.
Jarosla Horejc (b. 1886) is a glass designer
of Hungarian origin. One of Drahoftov-
sky’s pupils, he produced for the Paris
Exhibition in 1925 four vases with en-
graved decoration, one illustrated here,
decorated in magnificent classical style
with figures cut in very high relief
(Hochschnitt). The well-known Viennese
glass firm, J. & L, I.obmeyr was estab-
lished in 1823; since that date three
generations of Lobmcyrs had worked as
dealers in and refiners of glass in Vienna.
In 1918 Stephen Rath, a nephew of
Ludwig Lobmcyr, established a branch
cil the firm called ‘J. & L. Lobmeyrs Neffc
Stephan Rath’ in the North Bohemian
town of Steinschonau (or Kamcnicky
Seno). Here glass was made to Rath’s
specifications and decorated to the design
of artists by the finest engravers of the
district. Horejc’s work is a direct result of
this; in 1962 he was still continuing his
classical tradition of engraving with richly
varied figure subjects from the Lobmeyr
Studio.
John 1 lutton was born in New Zealand in
1906. He is probably best known for his
work in England, at Guildford, and for the
engraved panels he produced for Coventry
Cathedral. The freencss of his style of
engraving owes much to his equipment, a
movable wheel driven through a sheathed
flexible shaft by an electric motor. Water
is fed to the wheel by a wet piece of cloth
held in a bracket attached to the hand grip.
Instead of applying the glass to a stationary
wheel in the conventional manner of
engraving, Hutton is able to move his
wheel at will over the whole surface of the
glass. The result is a fine, shallow, light
engraving with rather a rough finish.
Hutton has translated some of the Coven-
try figures on to large vessels produced by
Whitefriars, one of which is illustrated.
His art is forceful and dramatic, and
reveals a new facet to the technique of
engraving glass.
Steuben Glass Works, U.S.A., 1045-50
Hi. 1525 mm (6 in.)
Frederick Carder (1863-1963) of the
Steuben Glass Works at Corning, New
York, developed the ancient cire perdue
(lost wax) process for the production of
Diatreta. In this process a wax model of
the object was made from a gelatin mould
taken from a plaster of Paris replica of the
object. The wax model was covered with a
ceramic mould. After a drying period of
twenty-four hours the mould was placed
over boiling water which melted the wax,
leaving the moulded impression in reverse
of the original model. Cold glass in the
form of rods or lumps was placed in the
mould, which was then fired in a kiln until
the glass had run into every part of the
mould. The mould and glass were next
slowly annealed, and finally the mould was
broken away, leaving a glass casting of the
original model. The Diatretum pieces
made between 1945 and 1959 show how
Carder had perfected this method of
glass-casting.
ENGRAVED BY Ј. JANE WEBSTER
England, 1963
One of the more successful modern free-
lance wheel-engravers of Britain is Jane
Webster, a former student of Stourbridge
College and Royal College, where she
gained the Princess of Wales scholarship.
Her chief concern, as it also is with her
contemporaries Laurence Whistler and
David Peace, is the satisfactory relation-
ship between the design on one side of the
glass and the part that shows through from
the other. Her husband, Cyril P. Aron,
designed her copper wheel-engraving
lathe. She specialises in commemorative
presentation pieces such as the one pre-
sented to Princess Anne on the occasion of
her visit to Pilkington Brothers’ St. Asaph
factory in Wales in 1972. She has also
engraved a set of twelve windows in a
synagogue at Stanmore, and an overdoor
panel for the Edinburgh Weavers’ show-
room in London. The chalice and paten
illustrated were commissioned by the
architect, Harry M. Fairhurst to be pre-
sented by the academic staff for the chapel
of the St. Anselm University Hall of
Residence at Manchester.

THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS
Nevers, Prance, 1777. Hi. 210 mm (8-25 in.)
Verre de Nevers: This technique origin-
ated in Nevers in the late 16th century, and
it is more closely allied to lamp-working
than to the normal techniques used for
creating glass objects, such as blowing and
moulding. It flourished in Europe for
some two centuries. This delightful group,
depicting the judgment of Paris, was made
in Nevers in the heyday of the glass
figurine, between the late 17th and early
18th centuries. The figures were made by
softening rods of glass of different colours
and winding them over a metal armature.
Every fold of the garments on this group
has a metal base below the glass. When the
glass was sufficiently thick, and after
repeated reheating, it was modelled to
shape with the aid of prods and pinchers. I n
Verre de Nevers groups, decorative details
such as leaves are made entirely of glass,
with no supporting core, while such forms
as birds might be blown.
WINE-GLASS WITH LAMP-WORKED DECORATION
Saxony? early 18th century. 111. 140 mm (55 in.)
Lamp-working is a technique used by
glass-makers to make objects by using only
a single flame as a source of heat. Glass
rods are normally used, held over the
flame and melted or softened to the
desired shape. In modern times, the most
popular lamp-worked objects are small
animals made out of coloured glass rods
melted down, bent and joined to the
required form. Details like eyes are made
by putting a small drop of molten glass on
the object, with possibly another centred
on the first drop to form the pupil. The
ornate stem-work on Venetian and /aeon
de Venise wine-glasses is closely allied to
this technique. One of the rare instances of
true lamp-working on a blown glass is the
wine-glass illustrated, which is one of a
series that have a band of lamp-worked
decoration round the centre of the bowl.
The work stands out in three dimensions
from the bowl, the small Cupid being
almost free-standing; he holds a garnet in
his hand. The provenance of these vessels
is not certain.
TULIP-SHAPED JUG
Karl Kopping, Berlin, c. 1900
I It. .120 mm (126 in.)
Karl Kopping (1848-1914) was a painter
and etcher in Berlin. Between 1892 and
1900 he designed some tall decanters and
goblets made at the lamp from tube glass.
At that time Germany had lor some ten
years been under the influence of the style
for naturalism created by Emile Galle of
France. It became known in Germany as
the Jugendsttl, and Karl Kopping’s exag-
gerated Art Nouveau glass vessels form a
part of this movement. The starting point
for his designs was the flower on its stalk,
and the colours he used could be both bold
and delicate. The stem of the glass
illustrated is in blue, the leaves are in
copper-green glass and the tulip-shaped
bowl has a metallic finish. The piece is
signed on the foot: ‘C. Kopping’. 1 lis work
became popular, and several museums
bought examples of it, but today they are
regarded more as period pieces.
BIRD FOUNTAIN
England, it»th century. III. 4H9 mm (1925 in.)
(See also colour photograph 16))
It has always been the custom for glass-
blowers to amuse themselves in spare
moments by creating fantasies in glass.
These are known in the trade as ‘friggcrs’
—a word which possibly derives from the
Old English ‘Jrician’, to dance. In Scotland
they are called ‘whigmelccrics’. In the
19th and early 20th centuries friggcrs
included elaborate fountains surrounded
by birds with tails of glass fibres and fully
rigged sailing ships on spun glass seas, as
well as the objects mentioned on page 100.
The more elaborate friggcrs are usually
protected by a large glass dome. Friggers
were made for amusement, for family
presents, as an extra source of money, or
even for fully mercantile reasons. Travel-
ling glass-makers who visited fairs and
private houses produced many of these
novelties, having as their kit a bundle of
multi-coloured glass canes and a little
furnace heated by a tallow flame.
The ‘taking away’ or abrasive techniques of
glass-making have as long a history as glass
itself Even earlier, hieroglyphic inscriptions
had been engraved on hard stone vessels, and
we definitely know that as early as the 16th
century B.C. glass was being engraved in
Egypt. Most of this engraving was probably
done with pointed instruments or possibly
with a rotary wheel. Wheel-culling and
wheel-engraving are the two terms most
commonly encountered, and though they are
thought of as almost separate methods,
basically the techniques are the same. In
both, a rotating abrasive wheel cuts into the
glass surface. The mam distinction is that
large wheels are used for cutting, where the
worker holds the glass on lop oj the wheel,
between himself and his tool; and small ones
for engraving, where he holds it below the
wheel, so that he can see what he is doing.
Culling is characterised by large-scale,
geometric designs, usually relatively deeply
incised, and engraving by jine, detailed,
usually pictorial work.
Grinding and Cutting from a Raw Block of
Glass: This was the only ‘taking away’
technique that was used to produce a com-
plete vessel or other object. The method,
which was covered in the first chapter,
dealing with techniques before blowing
was invented, continued in use for a short
time after the 1st century B.C. The ring
illustrated is a good example of the method
used to produce a single decorative object.
One might imagine that a gem or even a
glass cameo was once set in the concavity
left by the glass-cutter at the front of the
ring. (lasting glass in moulds and blowing
glass were so much easier, that this tech-
nique, using rotary abrasion to shape an
object, fell into disfavour. It was con-
tinued primarily as a means of finishing off
already made glass forms, or as a means of
embellishment.
GOBLET BEARING THE NAME OF TUTHMOSIS III
(1504 1450 B.C.)
Egypt III. 130 mm (5-1 in.)
Early Wheel Engraving: The goblet illus-
trated, made of turquoise-blue opaque
glass with a gold ring at the rim and base,
is a famous example of early incised work.
Some glass vessels from the 18th Dynasty
in Egypt are decorated with incised
inscriptions such as that found by Sir
flinders Petrie at Tell el Amarna. A frag-
ment of a bowl at The Corning Museum of
C1 hiss bears a fragmentary inscription
relating to the wife of Amcnhotep III
(1412 1375 B.C.), and is said to reveal ‘the
characteristic tapering ends of wheel cuts’.
Whether the engraving on these early
vessels was done with a point or by means
of a rotating instrument has been tho-
roughly discussed by R. J. Charleston (see
Bibliography). For the most part it seems
that just a pointed instrument was used,
and it was only in the later Egyptian
period that there is evidence of wheel-
engraving on the glass, probably by the use
of a bow-lathe.
SHALLOW BOWL WITH PETAL DESIGN
Roman Empire, 7ih 5th century B.C.
Hi. 39 mm (155 in), diam. 174 mm (685 in.)
In the general Mesopotamia-Assyria-Asia-
Minor region, rotary abrasion was used to
sharpen up decorative motifs, which were
first produced by moulding processes.
There is a large family of bowls with
radiating petal motifs—one being illus-
trated here—the earliest of which is known
to date from not later than 700 B.C. These
were produced by being cast into moulds,
and finished by grinding and cutting. As
abrasive powder on the wheels, emery was
probably used; this was apparently known
in Egypt at least as early as the 18th
Dynasty. The known use by the Egyptians
of tubular metal drills in cutting granite
was probably paralleled further East in the
first millenium B.C. Some such means
must have been employed in the hollowing
out of vessels like the famous ‘Sargon vase’
(see first chapter).
It is not known what type of abrading
equipment was used in Roman times to
decorate glass. It has been suggested that
an all-purpose tool could have been used,
which could be adapted as lathe, drill or
engraving wheel as needed. The Romans
definitely used abrasives such as emery for
cutting, and pumice stone for polishing the
cuts. Probably from Egypt came a group
of facet-cut and ‘diamond’-point engraved
bowls from the ist and 2nd century A.D.
(See Diamond-Point Engraving.) These
are the parent group from which are
descended all late Roman cut and engraved
glasses with figured scenes. The quality of
Alexandrian engraved work deteriorated
during the 3rd and 4th centuries A.D.
However, in the west, from some time in
the 3rd century A.D. onwards, a great
quantity of figured cut or engraved glass
began to be produced in Italy and the
neighbouring provinces, of which the dish
illustrated above is an example.
Figured decoration in engraved work was
not altogether abandoned by workers in
the eastern workshops, as is seen in some
later exports to the west from the east.
However, in general they began to con-
centrate on easier designs, suited to less
skilful engravers, and presumably for more
speedy production. The jug illustrated,
with geometric decoration in friezes, is an
example of the rather rough designs the
West Syrian/Egyptian workshops fav-
oured. It is in dark yellowish-green glass,
which is of rather poor quality, being
bubbly and streaky with impurities. The
fine linear and facet cutting of the earlier
period is not in evidence. Wheel-engraving
was now used to imitate facet cutting, with
designs of curved lines, circles and ovals.
The style took particular root in Egypt,
and probably in Syria also. Many of the
vessels of this type found in the west must
have been imports from these areas.
Diatreta are the most extraordinary and
most outstanding examples of the tech-
nique of abrasion ever made. From experi-
ments carried out by Fritz W. Schafer in
Germany and Barbini and Fuga in Italy it
has been proved with almost complete
certainty that these delicate cage cups were
produced by lapidary means, and not by
any other technique (see Bibliography). A
small battery of wheels and readily avail-
able abrasives, plus the skill of the en-
graver, are all that is needed to make a
diairelum from a solid, carefully annealed
blank. Diatreta are the finest product of
the Cologne and Trier glass-makers in the
4th century A.D. They have been found
in the Rhineland, on the Danube, in
Northern Italy and in Greece. The three
most beautiful, all with inscriptions, came
to light in Cologne. The inscription on the
one illustrated is in Greek, and conveys an
exhortation to drink.
With the decline of the Roman Empire in
the West, glass engraving died out. This
was largely because there was no (ine-
quality glass made after this time that was
suitable for engraving. In the East the
technique never ceased, and glasses with
cut decoration can be traced in unbroken
continuity through Sassanian to Islamic
times. Baghdad and Basra were noted for
cut glass in the 9th century A.D. and later.
In the 9th and ioth cerfturies, after a
renaissance under the dynasty of the
Samanids, a school of relief-cutting flour-
ished in Persia and probably in Meso-
potamia, which in Europe was not rivalled
until the end of the 17th century. The flask
illustrated is an early example of a shape
that was to remain popular throughout the
Islamic period. The scrolling engraved
design was to exert a great influence on the
mind of the Islamic artist.
Hedwigsglas in light brown clear glass, the
gilt-copper foot a later addition
So-called Hedwigsgldser represent the last
wheel-cut glass vessels to be produced in
the Orient, and are recognised as master-
pieces of Egyptian skill. Their origin is by
no means absolutely certain. These thick-
walled glasses carved in hochschnitl (deep
cutting) are maintained by B. Shelkov-
nikov to be the work of a 12th-century
White Russian workshop in Novogrudok,
which was presumably under the influence
of Byzantium. They are certainly a con-
tinuation of the art of rock-crystal cutting,
and more probably originated in Egypt.
The motifs used include stylised lions
and griffins between palm branches, as in
the illustrated example. Two of these
glasses reputedly belonged at one time to
St. Hedwig (1174-1243), wife of the Duke
of Silesia, and it is from her that the glasses
take their name. (Legend has it that the
saint caused water to change into wine in
one of these glasses.) Her niece, St.
Elizabeth (1207-31) also had a Hedwigs-
glas, reputed to give strength to women in
labour, which eventually came into Martin
Luther’s possession.
clp with facet-cltting
Barnwell, Cambridgeshire, England, lasi quarter of
1st century or early 2nd century A.D.
Ht. 90 mm (355 in.)
Facet-Culting is a form of decoration that
goes back certainly to the early Roman
period. Large, broad wheels were needed
to make the facets in the glass. R. J.
Charleston points out that Pliny mentions
some of the abrasives used for grinding in
Roman times, such as ’sand of Naxos’ for
emery, ’sands’ from India, Egypt and
Nubia, and certain stones from Armenia
and Cyprus. He also points out that
Theophrastus mentions pumice and also
emery in his History of Stones. Pliny
mentions Thebaic stone from Egypt and
pumice for the final polishing of marbles.
A wheel with a broad cutting or grinding
edge was certainly used to produce the
facet-cutting on this cup, which is in clear
glass with a greenish tint. Cups like this
found in England and Cyprus are thought
to originate from Western Syria or Egypt
and, in the later 2nd century A.D., from
East Syria.
During the 2nd century A.D. the East
Syrian glass-makers and decorators devel-
oped their knowledge of the art of glass-
engraving including facet-cutting. The
art lived on through Sassanian to Islamic
times. The flask illustrated, in clear glass
with a slight blue tinge, is a typical example
of the continued tradition of wheel-cut
decoration. Oval concave facets cover the
body of the flask, and the neck also has a
ring of facets. Previous to this, in Sassanian
times, wheel-cutting, particularly facet-
cutting, resulted in some striking glass-
ware. Most of the surviving examples from
this period arc cither facet- or linear-cut,
including characteristic shapes such as the
hemispherical bowls with concave cut
facets which were exported to the West
and East, even as far as Japan.
Facet-cutting, particularly for stem-work,
became popular in the second half of the
18th century. Facetted tumblers and
bottles were current in Bohemia, and in
Germany facet-cut knops appear on wine-
glasses from the Laucnstein and other
Hessian glass-houses in the first half of the
18th century. In England at the same time
glass-grinders were facetting the edges of
mirrors, and simple diamond-facetting
was beginning to appear on some glasses.
Scent bottles of opaque white glass and
blue glass, and snuff bottles dating from
about 1770, had all-over facetting and
were often enamelled and gilt. Once
thought to have originated from Bristol,
they more probably came from the Birm-
ingham, South Staffordshire or even Lon-
don area. From the middle of the 18th
century, facet-cutting became an estab-
lished form of decoration in England,
appearing particularly on wine-glass stems,
between c. 1760 to f.1810. Examples can be
found through to the modern period.
VASE WITH FACET CUTTING
By Keith Murray. Stevens & Williams, England,
1939. Ht. 206 mm (8-13 in.)
The architect Keith Murray (b.1893) first
began to take an interest in glass after the
Exhibition in Paris in 1925. He asked
himself why he found the conventional cut
crystal of England so unsatisfactory. After
analysing old English glass, he decided the
glass was better if left plain, or when it was
cut, if the cutting was in a ‘well organised
decoration’, flat cutting being particularly
appealing. The idea of an artist designing
for industry was beginning to be accepted
in England, and in 1932 it was arranged
that Murray should act as designer for
glass for Stevens & Williams at Brierley
Hill, near Stourbridge. During the seven
years he worked in glass he produced
designs for simple unornamented table
services and for some larger pieces. His
most important works are the large vases
and dishes in heavy metal decorated with
facet-cutting reminiscent of early Georgi-
an work. They powerfully express his
architectural feeling, and the decoration
matches the material superbly.
BOWL WITH  FACETTING
By Miluse Roubiekova, Borske sklo, Czechoslovakia,
1958. Diam. 450 mm (17-7 in.)
After the political revolution in Czecho-
slovakia in 1948 the glass industry was
nationalised. The Creative Glass Centre in
Prague was set up in 1952, in order to
establish contact between the glass-works
and the artists and designers, and to
encourage research into new methods of
decorating glass. Czechoslovakian glass
has long been known for its great tradition
in lead crystal cutting, and like its British
counterpart, Bohemian crystal still enjoys
a large public all over the world. The
tradition continues, but finds new expres-
sion in less rigid cut-glass patterns, softer
patterns of a gently formalised character
being increasingly favoured. A good exam-
ple of the new trend is the free irregular
facet-cutting on this bowl designed by
Miluse Roubiekova made at the Borske
sklo, Novy Bor. The usual diamond or
star motifs are no longer in evidence, but
the unsymmetrical lines of the bowl still
enhance the brilliance of the glass.
Later Wheel Engraving: In gem-cutting,
wheels of various materials were certainly
being used by the 15th century to engrave
and polish. By the 16th century, the prin-
ciple of continuous rotary movement had
been established. Engraving equipment
driven by a foot treadle was in use by glass
engravers in the early 17th century. Caspar
I.ehmann, the greatest name in the revival
of glass-engraving in Europe in the late 16th
century, was an engraver of hard-stones
before he was a glass-engraver, and one-
can assume his equipment was more or less
the same for both crafts. Lehmann was
‘Imperial gem-engraver’ to the Emperor
Rudolph II at Prague in 1601, and in 1608
was described as ‘Imperial gem-engraver
and glass-engraver’. From the very begin-
ning, then, the glass-cutter undoubtedly
borrowed his ideas from the gem-cutter,
whose art was so closely allied to his own.
This was a tradition that was to continue
into relatively modern times.
Caspar Lehmann’s engraving is shallow—
because of the thinness of the glass—two-
dimensional and unpolished. Prague was
one of the centres for rock crystal cutting,
and this is reflected in the style of the
engraving, which is flatly cut and gains its
effect from the contrast between the white
engraved lines and the’dark background of
the clear glass. In 1600 I.ehmann obtained
an Imperial Privilege conferring on him
alone the right to practise the art of glass-
engraving in the Imperial domains I le
bequeathed his privilege to his pupil
Gcorg Schwanhardt the Elder, born in
Nuremberg, who worked with him at
Prague. In 1622 Schwanhardt returned to
Nuremberg, where he founded a brilliant
school of wheel-engraving which flourished
to the 18th century. The new potash-lime
glass developed in Bohemia and Germany
in the early 17th century was eminently
suitable for the technique of wheel-
engraving.
COVERED GOBLET IN GREEN GLASS WITH CLEAR GLASS
STEM (DETAIL)
Probably engraved by Hermann Schwinger,
Nuremberg, Germany, about 1665- 80
Hi. 394 mm (15-5 in.)
Schwanhardt’s work in rock crystal and in
glass shows a complete mastery of the
technique of wheel-engraving. His work
was both polished and unpolished, and he
often used as motifs landscapes with
figures, with formal baroque scroll work.
He sometimes added delicate diamond-
point work to his glasses. Among his
pupils were members of his own family,
his sons, Georg the younger and Hcinrich,
and three of his daughters. Other notable
artists among the Nuremberg engravers
were Hermann Schwinger (1640-83) and
Georg Friedrich Killinger (first recorded
1694, died 1726). They all engraved the
same characteristic type of tall goblet,
with hollow knopped stem. The family
of Johann Hess at Frankfort-on-Main
engraved similar glasses in the second half
of the 17th century. Johann Heel (1637-
1709) glass-engraver, silversmith, faience-
painter and engraver of prints in Nurem-
berg also engraved glass in a somewhat
different style, following the motifs he
used in faience painting.
COVERED GOBLET WITH HOCHSCHNITT CUTTING
By Friedrich Winter, Silesia, end of 171I1 century
Ht. 280 mm (11 in.)
{See also colour photograph iH)
During its most flourishing period (c. 1685-
1775) German glass-engraving was done
mainly by unknown artisans working for
themselves in north-eastern Bohemia and
Silesia. However, the best-known work
was done by the engravers to three German
courts. Friedrich Winter set up the first of
these workshops in 1687, with permission
from Count Christoph Leopold von Schaff-
gotsch, at Petersdorf in the Hirschbcrger
Tal. He used water power, and produced
many glasses in the Hochschnitt technique.
Under the patronage of Friedrich Wilhelm,
Elector of Brandenburg, Friedrich Win-
ter’s brother Martin (died 1702) set up an
engraving workshop in Potsdam near
Berlin in 1687. This was also run by a
water-power mill specifically to produce
works in Hochschnitt (deep cutting) and
Tiefschnitt (intaglio work). Martin Win-
ter’s highly gifted nephew Gottfried Spiller
worked here, becoming a partner in 1683.
His engraving included flowers, allegories,
portraits, coats of arms, sometimes in
Hochschnitt, and occasionally he used the
ruby glass of the Potsdam glass-house.

The blank was then subjected to an acid
bath, to give the surface a matt finish.
Knamels were applied somewhat thinly,
except in areas that were to have a raised
design, and these were fired on. The most
popular colours were whiles, tans and soft
pastel shades, though occasionally brighter
colours were employed. The usual floral,
figural, animal, bird and fish motifs of the
Mt. Washington Glass Company were
used on this ware. Ornate handles, finials
and prunts were also to be found. The
initials ‘C apd ‘M’ one upon the other,
with a five-pointed crown above, was the
trademark, though occasionally the crown
was omitted. Thomas Webb & Sons of
Kngland produced a similar ware some
time between 1880 00, as illustrated
above. The New Bedford works may have
produced the so-called ‘Shiny Crown
Milano’, a glossy white opal glass, usually
with gold-coloured floral decoration. It is
found with a red laurel wreath fired to the
bottom of the glass.
In 1870 I lenry Cielhing Richardson of the
firm of Hodgetts, Richardson & Son of
Stourbridge, Kngland, patented a method
for ‘Improvements In Producing Orna-
ments, Designs, And Inscriptions On Or
In Glass’. A wide open-mouthed vessel in
clear glass was made, and when it had
cooled, had a design enamelled on its
inside. The thin-walled vessel was then
heated to a low redness while a second
smaller bubble of opal or other coloured
glass was lowered into it. This was blown
until it attached itself to the inside of the
vessel, thus covering and imprisoning the
enamelled design between the two layers.
The designs were painted so that when the
paraison expanded they did not distort too
much. The same effect could be made by
painting a design in coloured enamels on
an opal or coloured glass and then
immersing this in clear colourless glass to
lock the design in. Once the design was
imprisoned, the glass could be shaped into
the article wanted.
mary gregory vase in green glass with girl and
butter ely net enamelled in white
Atlributcd to Boston & Sandwich Glass Company,
U.S.A., iqth century
So-called ‘Mary Gregory’ glass is a trans-
parent coloured glassware with white or
coloured enamel designs painted and fired
on to the surface. It was a cheap imitation
of English cameo glass, but with a certain
merit of its own. Such wares were made
more prolifically on the Continent than in
America. However, much of the ware has
been erroneously attributed to one of the
older American glass factories in Sand-
wich, Mass., the Boston & Sandwich Glass
Company. The firm is known primarily
for its pressed wares of the early 1830’s,
but later it produced some decorated
glasses, possibly including enamelled glass
of this type. A Mary Gregory is supposed
to have been employed in the decorating
department of the Cape Cod works, which
is the reason for the name given to the
glass. Some genuine Boston & Sandwich
pieces depict young children engaged in
butterfly-collecting, the detail, including
the childrens’ facial features, being beauti-
fully finished.
vase with enamelled decoration
Signed Moser, Bohemia, early 20th century
Ht. 26c mm
Bohemian sources continued to search for
a cheaper method of producing work with
the same surface decorative effect as
English cameo work. They usually
achieved this in Mary Gregory style, with
simulated cameo decoration in extremely
fine white enamel work on overlay vases.
Their work was good, but unfortunately it
depressed the fine English cameo market,
since the genuine cameo work was expen-
sive to produce. In a different category of
enamelling technique comes the work of
Kolo Moser, a Bohemian designer as well
as decorator of glass in the early tooo’s,
who was counted as one of the finer
European glassmen of this period. His
pieces can be recognised by their very fine
enamelling, as in the vase illustrated.
Moser’s work included the introduction to
the market of an amethyst dichroic trans-
parent glass called ‘Alexandria (not to be
confused with the three-coloured ware of
Thomas Webb and Stevens & Williams of
England, which went under the name of
‘Alexandrite’).
VASE WITH ENAMELLED DECORATION
by Maurice Marinoi, France, c. 1920.
Hi. 343 mm (13 50 in.)
Maurice Marinot (born 1882), the most
decisive personality in the history of art
glass between the wars, began as a painter.
Between 1905 and 1914 he was exhibiting
regularly, already showing a tendency for
clear and orderly composition and an
imaginative use of colour. He was intro-
duced to glass-making in 1911, when he
visited the glass factory of Viard near
Troyes, and started to direct the produc-
tion of glass, which he himself decorated
with enamels. His glasses became col-
lectors’ items almost immediately, espec-
ially after his exhibition at the Salon des
link-pendants in 1912. Simple in shape,
they were decorated with the heads and
figures of women. As he began to under-
stand better the technique of enamelling,
his colours became even richer and the
texture finer. The pieces he made after the
First World War showed extraordinary
freedom and refinement, and the colours
had great subtlety, though his pre-war
pieces had a youthful zest which was all
their own.
SPOUTED WINE-GLASS IN CLEAR COLOURLESS GLASS, WITH
GILDING AND PAINTING
Hall-in-ihe-Tyrol, 1536. Ht. 335 mm (1315 in.)
Cold Painted Glass: Unfired colours, such
as lacquer, varnish and oil pigments, have
all been used to decorate glass, but they
easily rub off, and must therefore be con-
sidered a poorer form of coloured decora-
tion than fired enamels. Examples of
Roman glass with unfired paintings have
been found. It is also known that at about
the middle of the 16th century, after
enamelling had gone out of fashion, a form
of decoration in unfired oil colours was in
favour in Italy. Elaborate pictorial sub-
jects were used, often based on Raphael’s
work, with elaborate gilt scroll-work, but
the decoration was naturally very liable to
damage. Unfired lacquer painting and
gilding was used as decoration at the Hall-
in-the-Tyrol glass-house, which flourished
in the third quarter of the 16th century.
The spouted ewer illustrated is typical of
this work. In England, cheaper glass
products of the 19th century, such as
rolling pins and sugar basins, bore unfired
painted decoration.
Adding: The Skill of the Decorator
Lustre-painted Glass: An old technique
which was neither cold painting nor
enamelling, but did involve the firing-on
of a film of pigment to the glass, was known
as lustre painting. Depending on the
firing, the film became more or less
lustrous, and was almost imperceptible to
the touch. Exactly how it was done has
never been discovered, but there is reason
to connect the technique with that of
lustre-painting on tin-glazed pottery which
was practised first in Mesopotamia in the
9th century A.D. The method depended
on the reduction of metallic compounds
such as silver, copper or gold to the
metallic state by means of the carbon in
smoke. Generally speaking, the lustre
produced was reddish-brown in colour.
The technique was first practised in
Egypt, in either the late Byzantine or early
Islamic period, and was probably known
to Syrian glass-makers. In more modern
times platinum and bismuth have been
used as metallic compounds to produce
lusires on glassware (see Iridescent Glass).
Gold Decoration: Gold Sandwich Glass:
Apart from gold included in mosaic glass,
some of the earliest examples of gold
decoration are the gold sandwich glasses
found at Canosa in Apulia, Italy, dating to
the 3rd century B.C. (see Techniques
Before Blowing). After blowing was in-
vented in the 1st century B.C. the tech-
nique of sandwiching gold foil between
two glass layers was not abandoned, but
reached its most prolific period in approx-
imately the 4th century A.D. The majority
of these gilded glasses of the 3rd and 4th
centuries A.D. were found in the cata-
combs around Rome, embedded in the
plaster of the loculi, probably put there by
the relatives of the dead. These early
Christian fondi <f oro, as they are some-
times called, arc in fact the bases of
shallow bowls or dishes. The gold leaf
which was put inside the base ring of the
glass was engraved and sometimes, as in
the above example, had additional painted
decoration. This was covered with a
further protective layer of glass, which
was fused or cemented’to the base of the
bowl.
fragment of a bowi. in gold sandwich glass
depicting christ
lialy, 4ih century A.D. Diam. 90 mm (3′55 >n-)
The glass was broken away to the edge of
the gold decoration, so that a medallion-
like effect was achieved. Sometimes the
outer layer was coloured, but usually both
layers of glass were colourless. The sub-
jects depicted were taken from Jewish and
Christian symbolism and Biblical history,
but pagan motifs also appeared, such as
scenes from games and Classical myth-
ology, and dedications can be found to
circus heroes as well as to saints. The ware
was almost certainly manufactured at a
workshop in or near Rome. The name of a
4th-century A.D. bishop, Damasus, ap-
pears on several fragments, which helps
to date them, and since no more burials
took place in the catacombs after about
410 A.D., this could be assumed to be
their latest date. The workmanship on the
gold sandwich glasses is not usually of high
artistic merit. A disadvantage of the
technique was that air bubbles might get
between the two layers of glass and
disfigure the design.
tumbler in ‘/.mschengoldglas technique
Bohemia, about 1730. Ht. 89 mm (35 in.)
(See also colour photographs /(j and 14)
The gold sandwich technique is believed
to have been used in Rhenish glass
factories in Roman times. Fragments with
painted decoration have been found in
Cologne, in a style not seen on the glasses
from Rome. A series of Byzantine tiles
dating from somewhere between the 6th
and the 12th centuries A.D. differs in
being made up of fused gold glass covered
with a film of colourless glass. The method
was revived in the 18th century in Ger-
many, the products being called Zwischen-
goldgldser. Gold leaf was applied and
engraved on the outside of a tumbler,
which had previously been ground down
for about three-quarters of its height, a
projecting shoulder being left at the top.
A polygonal bottomless glass was then put
over the gold decoration, fitting neatly to
the shoulder. This outer glass projected a
little below the base of the tumbler, and a
further disc of glass, similarly gold-
engraved, was fixed in the space left.
Obviously, perfect precision was needed
if an airtight fit was to be achieved.
Bohemia, about 1710. Hi. 241 mm (9*5 in.)
Silver leaf as well as gold was used in
Zwischengoldgldser, and additions of ruby,
pink and green transparent lacquers occur
on some of the more elaborate later
examples-. This renewal of the gold sand-
wich glass technique seems to have been
concentrated in Bohemia at one or two
workshops. The best specimens date from
the 1730’s, but less skilled work was done
until about 1755. The glasses were deli-
cately engraved in gold with hunting
scenes, figures of saints and shields of arms,
usually of Bohemian families. That the
artists were aware of their early Christian
predecessors seems apparent from the
motifs used for the base discs of their
tumblers, such as the IHS monogram, and
Christian emblems comparable to those of
the early gold sandwich discs. Views of
monasteries and of local Bohemian saints
are among the decorations, the detail on
the gold leaf being scratched on with a
point. Though tumblers were the com-
monest shape used, other forms are found,
such as the covered goblet illustrated.
iimkik with medallions in TwiuhtWtUfUii
Johann Joseph Mildncr, Lower Austria, 1800
Ht. 102 mm (4 in.)
The gold sandwich glass technique was
also used in a highly personal way by
Johann Joseph Mildner (1763-1808) of
Gutenbrunn in Lower Austria. His finely
decorated gift tumblers have medallion
panels, decorated with red lacquer and
gold leaf in the Zwischengoldglas technique,
let in flush with the surface of the glass in
spaces cut exactly to receive them. Por-
traits, monograms, arms, allegories, land-
scapes, still life pieces and representations
of saints were used by him as motifs.
he inserted in his medallions
miniature portraits painted in colours on
parchment. Sometimes the medallions
were inserted in the bottom of the tumblers
as well as on the sides. A poem might be
scratched on the reverse side of the
medallion. Signed works are known be-
tween 1787 and 1808. The glasses arc
usually cylindrical, and are among the best
work produced in the Kmpire period.
Mildner’s technique continued the tradi-
tion established by the ancient Roman
medallions and the Zwischengoldgldser.
Stevens & Williams, England, beginning of 20th
century. Ht. 220 mm (q in.)
Stevens 6k Williams of Brierley Hill,
England, produced a glassware akin to the
gold sandwich glass technique at the
beginning of this century. John North-
wood II was its inventor, and he developed
it about 1000, calling it ‘Silveria’. It was
made by sandwiching a layer of silver foil
between two layers of clear colourless or
coloured glass. Northwood’s method was
to blow the first bubble of glass to almost
full size before the foil was picked up from
the marver on the bubble. It was then
plunged into a pot of hot metal, which put
a protective film of glass over the foil.
Trails of coloured glass, often transparent
green, were put on the surface somewhat
haphazardly. The original silver lustre is
retained as long as no air gets between the
two layers of glass. Pieces of Silveria are
often marked ‘S’ and ‘W’, and the word
‘England’ or a small fleur de lys may
sometimes appear.
picture in verre eglomise
By Zeuner, Netherlands, late 18th century
Ht. 201 mm (8 in.)
Verre Eglomise: When gold or silver leaf
is fixed to the back of a sheet of colourless
glass and etched with a point, the work
known as ‘verre eglomise’ is produced. This
can be backed with colour, e.g., lacquer or
oil pigments, to show through the areas
where the foil has been scraped away. To
protect the unfired painting and gilding, a
layer of varnish or metal foil or another
sheet of glass can be laid on the back of the
object. The term ‘eglomise’1 is taken from
the name of an 18th-century French
picture-framer called Glomy, who used
the technique extensively. It was also used
by an Amsterdam artist, Zeuner; little is
known of him, apart from his signed work,
though he did visit England in 1778, when
he exhibited a ‘landscape in metals’ at the
Society of Artists of Great Britain. Both
Dutch and English scenes can be found,
usually signed by the artist. Some English
views date to the early years of the 19th
century.
PLATE IN verre eglomise
Kngland, early 19th century
Diam. 219 mm (8-6? in.)
SEGMENT OF DISH WITH GILT DECORATION
Italy, first half of the 16th century
Diam. 191 mm (75 in.)
The pictorial and decorative engraving of
gold leaf on glass has been practised since
before the Roman era, although the name
verre eglomise is fairly modern. Early gold
sandwich glasses can be considered to be
a form of verre eglomise, as can the later
forms of gold-glass, such as the Zwischen-
goldgldser. A variation on the theme was
suggested by Johann Kunckel in his book
Ars Vitraria Experimental!! (1679). In this,
in effect, two beakers were made to fit
exactly together as in the Zwischengold-
glaser, the inner surface of the outer beaker
being painted with delicate veining to
resemble marble. The outer surface of the
inner beaker had gold leaf applied, and was
engraved in the usual manner. When the
two were fitted together, a double effect of
marbling and gilding in the glass could be
achieved. The plate illustrated is a skilful
example of verre eglomise belonging to the
early 19th century.
Gilding on the Outer Surface: Gilding is so
often found in conjunction with enamelling
on glass that it is difficult to separate the
two techniques completely. Both gilt and
enamelled decoration are fired to the glass
in an enameller’s kiln. Islamic artists, who
were such great enamcllers, also produced
gilding on their glasses, though true gild-
ing did not usually appear until after the
fall of Fatimid Dynasty in 1171. It was
during the 12th century that the Egyptian
art of gilding glass was transferred to Syria,
when artists from Egypt took service at the
courts of the rulers of Syria and North-
West Mesopotamia. The Venetians also
notably combined gilding with enamelling
on their glasses, the gilding having a
peculiarly light, soft quality. Occasionally
they used gilding on its own for decoration,
as in the dish illustrated, which has an
inscription appearing through a ground of
light gilding.
Gilding put on the outer surface of the
glass was always in danger of being rubbed
off, and with use many poorly gilded glasses
lost all traces of their original decoration.
Unfired gilt decoration (see next column)
would almost certainly rub off. When gold
in powdered form or as thin gold leaf was
stuck to the glass with an oily or adhesive
medium (as described) it could be fired to
it in an enameller’s kiln. This was a far
more durable way to gild glass, but was
rarely entirely successful. Even the gilding
on 18th-century blue, green and opaque
white Bristol glass, which is notably good,
has suffered a little with the passage of
time. The best-known motifs on Bristol
glass are the gilt fret border as on the dark
blue wine-glass cooler illustrated, and a
chain and label inscribed with the names
of drinks, such as Shrub, Rum, Hollands,
Gin and Brandy which are found on many
decanters; the stoppers of the decanters
often bore the initial of the drinks con-
tained.
DSCANTO WITH ENGRAVED AND GII.T DECORATION
France, end ol the 18th century
Ht. 327 mm (12-88 in.)
A somewhat simplified description of the
process of gilding was given first by
Haudicquer de Blancourt in his De F Art
de la Verrerie (1679). The second and more-
convincing method he described involved
painting the surface of the glass with gum-
water, applying gold leaf and washing the
leaf over with a solution of borax. Glass
ground to an impalpable powder was then
sprinkled over the borax, and the vessel
was put into the furnace and fired. Unfired
gilding was described by an English author
in 1735. A combination of chalk, red-lead
and linseed oil was laid on the glass, gold
leaf was applied and, when the solution
had dried, was polished. Dr. W. Lewis,
writing in 1763, recommended a solution
of amber combined with oil of turpentine
and a small amount of white lead and
minium. When this varnish had been
painted on the glass the gold leaf was
applied, the varnish allowed to dry, and
then the gold decoration was polished.
EWER IN BLUE GI.ASS WITH GII.T DECORATION
India, 18th century A.D. Ht. 280 mm (11 in.)
Unfired gilding could never match the
toughness of gilding which was burned
into the surface of the glass. For this, gold
leaf alone could be applied, or a flux could
be used with it. Gold leaf on its own, as
described by Blancourt, demanded an
extreme nicety in the firing of the glass.
When a flux was used under the gold leaf,
the firing was not nearly so difficult, but
the gilding tended to stand out from the
surface of the glass. Instead of gold leaf, a
precipitate of gold could be mixed with the
flux and fired, but the brightness of the
gilding suffered. For polishing the gold,
wolf, bear or hog’s tooth, or polished agate
and Venetian soap and water, were recom-
mended in an 18th-century manuscript.
Among the striking glassware produced in
India between the late 17th and the 19th
centuries were examples of fine gilding.
The glass illustrated is characteristic of the
Mughal industry, the poppy sprays being
a motif much used during the reign of
Shah Jahan (1627-58) and later.
VASE WITH COVER WITH ENGRAVED
DECORATION
Granja de San lldefonso, Spain, second half of
the 18th century. Hi. 508 mm (20 in.)
{See also colour photographs 1$ and 2;)
This vase is an example of the fired gilding
practised at the Spanish royal glass factory
near the palace of La Granja de San
lldefonso, near Segovia. Spain wished to
rival the French and German glass indus-
tries, and thus encouraged foreign work-
men to establish glass-houses from the late
17th century. There was little success until
Juan Goyeneche, with the help of foreign
workmen, managed to produce a good-
quality clear colourless glass. Encouraged
by Queen Isabella, Buenaventura Sit, one
of Goyeneche’s workmen, set up a glass-
house in 1728 near the palace of La Granja,
where he specialised in mirrors and vessels
in the Catalan tradition. First a French-
man, then a Swede, took charge of hollow-
ware manufacture, until 1768, when a
German, Sigismund Brun, took over the
direction of the factory, introducing fired
gilding and cut and engraved decoration.
After a period of expensive mismanage-
ment, the factory passed in 1829 into
private hands, and thenceforward made
only common glass.

BOWL IN DARK RED GLASS, ENAMELLED AND GILT
Byzantine, i ith-t2th century A.D.Ht. 79 mm (3*13 in.)
Theophilus, describing ‘how the Greeks
embellish with Gold and Silver’, said ‘they
take the white, red and green glass, whicb
are used for enamels, and carefully grind
each one separately with water on a
porphyry stone. With them they paint
small flowers and scrolls . . .’. He went on
to describe the furnace in which they fired
window glass, including painted glass, and
specified that the glass be bedded down on
quick-lime. Vasari, who wrote an account
of the stained glass technique of Gugliel-
imo de Marcillat (d.1529) stressed that
‘this burning in of the colours requires the
greatest caution, for if the heat be too great
it will cause the glass to crack, and if
insufficient it will not fix the colours’. To
test the enamel, Theophilus suggested
that you should ’see if you can scratch off
the colour with your nail’. Glasses of the
type described by Theophilus are known,
dating from the 1 ith to the 12th centuries;
one of them is illustrated.
VASE WITH ENAMELLING AND GILDING
Syria, Ј.1320-30 A.D. Ht. 302 mm (11 88 in.)
(See also colour photograph 11)
Not until the 13th and 14th centuries was
the next high point in the history of
enamelling reached, with the great Islamic
mosque lamps and other vessels produced
in the near East, particularly in Syria.
Besides the weli-known lamps which
adorned Moslem holy places, the Syrian
enamellers decorated such objects as
footed bowls, sprinklers, globes, beakers
and long-necked bottles. The vase illus-
trated is decorated with golden arabesques
and fish motifs finely outlined in red. The
inscription round the widest point of the
vessel repeats the words ‘The Wise’
(referring to the God of Mohammed). The
medallions around the neck of the vase
probably contain the armorial symbol of
the nobleman who commissioned the
object. The glass itself is not clear and
colourless, for most of the Islamic glass of
that time is of a brownish or greenish tint,
often clouded with bubbles.
Adding: The Skill of the Decorator
In Islam the art of enamelling came to
maturity from the 13th century, the finest
work being done in Syria. The lamps in
Egyptian mosques exported from Syria
are the most famous examples of all the
Islamic enamelled glass. Strictly speaking,
these objects are lamp-holders or lanterns
rather than lamps, for they enclosed an
oil-vessel which provided the illumination.
They were suspended from the roof of the
mosque by chains which, when the roof
was high, passed through a glass globe or
ball, from where the chains radiated to the
handles of the lamp. Enamelled glass was
used for these lamps, not only for its
obvious decorative effect, but because the
Koran said, ‘God is the light of the
Heavens and the Earth: His light is as a
niche in which is a lamp, the lamp in a
glass, the glass as it were a glittering star’.
Many reproductions of mosque lamps
were made at the end of the 19th century.
Unfortunately, like the Romans, the Is-
lamic glass-making artists left no written
record of the craft which they practised
with such very great skill. It is not until
the 15th century that a contemporary
record of enamelling techniques is found,
but from that time, especially with the
advent of printing, there is no lack of
written evidence. Enamelling on glass was
a speciality of the Venetian glass-makers,
a technique which they developed during
the 15th century, probably reaching tech-
nical maturity by the middle of the
century. In all essentials their enamelling
technique was similar to that of the
Islamic artists, yet it would appear that the
Venetians independently re-invented en-
amelling on glass—possibly borrowing the
idea from the Italian worker in metal. By-
tradition the invention has been ascribed
to the glass-maker Angelo Baroviero.
Throughout the 15th century the coloured
glass the Venetians had invented—blue,
green, white, purple and turquoise—was
richly enamelled and gilded.
GOBLET IN  COLOURED GLASS
ENAMELLED DECORATION
Venice. Italy, late 15th 10 early 16th century
By the beginning of the 16th century the
fashion in Venice for coloured glass had
given way to a desire for clear colourless
glass. Enamelling, along with other forms
of decoration, was usually found on clear
glass specimens from this time, although
the clear metal was far less suited to the
technique. The pictorial work which had
been used so much on coloured glass soon
disappeared, and enamelling was restricted
to a few simple motifs. A favourite of these
was a form of scale pattern in bead-like
dots of enamelling and light gilding,
through which lines were scratched, al-
though simple bands of coloured dots were
sometimes the sole decoration of the piece.
Another familiar motif of the late 15th-
and early 16th-century glasses resembled
a lily-of-the-vallcy or a small fruit with a
calyx attached, as on the goblet illustrated.
This goblet also helps to show how the
Venetians combined their coloured and
clear glass in one vessel.
Although representational painting was no
longer the fashion by the beginning of the
16th century, a transitional phase is
represented by a series of glasses enamelled
with grotesque ornamentation built up
from patterns of flowers, leaves, animal
and human-like forms. Armorial glasses
were probably among the latest Venetian
work in the technique of enamelling. A
shield of arms or an emblem would be
added to the few simple decorative motifs
that were now in use on clear colourless
glass, and at their best, these were very
well drawn, as in the dish illustrated.
However, in some cases there is reason to
suspect that the shields were later addi-
tions. Venetian taste, now inclining to-
wards the new, clear colourless metal,
began to appreciate glass for its own sake
and to be interested more in its quality and
beauty of shape than in its added decora-
tion. By the middle of the 16th century the
technique of enamelling, apart from wares
made for export, had virtually passed out
of fashion in Italy.
beaker with enamelled decoration
Made in Venice for the German market, 1603
Ht. 267 mm (105 in.)
Reuhsadlerhumpen, pale green glass with
enamelled decoration
Bohemia, 1654. Ht. 200 mm (11-4 in.)
Although enamelling became unfashion-
able in Italy, it remained a favourite form
of decoration in Germany until the second
half of the 18th century. The earliest
enamelled glasses thai might have a claim
to being German are some cylindrical
beakers commonly bearing German arms,
but it is now thought that these were
ordered from Venice by German buyers.
The beaker illustrated, inscribed ‘Roccho
Grasl’, is a typical late example of the type.
The most productive enamelling work-
shops in the late 16th and early 17th
centuries were situated in Bohemia,
whence the craft was carried to Germany
by emigrant workmen. German enamel-
ling, with its bold colours, has the attrac-
tiveness of a peasant art, but the enamels
used were not of fine quality nor were the
drawings of any distinction. The glass
itself was relatively poor, and only a few
shapes were attempted: the tall Stangen-
glas, the cylindrical Humpen, jugs, beakers,
and screw-topped spirit flasks.
The subjects used by the German enam-
ellers for the most part belong to peasant
art. Gonventional portraits, simplified
landscapes, scenes of artisans at work,
guild processions, satirical subjects, alle-
gories and inscriptions, usually illiterate
and sometimes obscene, are common.
Biblical subjects, the Emperor and the
Seven Electors and the Reichsadler are also
depicted on these glasses. The Reichsadler
is the Imperial double-eagle, bearing on
its wings the arms with names of a fanciful
hierarchy of the Holy Roman Empire; the
arms are arranged in groups of four in the
so-called Quaternion system derived from
Schedel’s Wellkronik of 1483. They begin
with those of Rome and the three spiritual
Electors (Treves, Cologne, Mayence),
balanced by the four temporal ones
(Bavaria, Brandenburg, Saxony, Palatin-
ate), ending with four ‘Dorffer’ and four
‘Birg’. The Reichsadlerhumpen may have
had some contemporary significance, since
they originated during the strife of the
Thirty Years’ War. The Retchsadler and
the ‘Elector’ glasses remained popular for
a long period.
Adding: The Skill of the Decorator
In the guild regulations of the glass-
makers of Krcibitz in Bohemia (1669) one
of the tasks set the aspiring craftsman was
to ‘prepare with colours an Imperial
Eagle, with all its members, in one and a
half days’. This referred to the Reich-
sadlerhumpen, which most likely had to be
fired more than once, those enamels which
required a higher temperature being fired
before the ones which fluxed at a lower
heat In all essentials the contemporary
descriptions of enamelling agree with each
other, the cakes or beads of enamel being
pounded on marble or porphyry, [he
powder thus resulting being washed and
applied to the already annealed glass vessel
and the glass being carefully reheated so
that the enamels fused to it successfully. It
would seem that enamelled vessel-glass
began to be fired in special ‘muffle kilns’
rather than in the glass furnace itself by
the end of the 17th century. As in ordinary
coloured glass, metal oxides were used to
give the enamels their various colours.
‘SchwarzloT, or black enamelling on glass
was a Dutch invention originally used lor
the decoration of windows; it spread into
Northern Germany, and was developed b\
Johann Schaper in the third quarter ol the
17th century. Schaper was born at Ham-
burg in 1621, was at Nuremberg from
1655, at Ratisbon in 1664 and died in 1670.
Originally a painter of stained window-
glass, he was the first of the South German
llausmaler or independent artists, obtain-
ing undecorated glass and pottery and
decorating it to Ins own invention. I le used
copper oxide mixed with black enamel
pigment, painting this on to the glass ahd
then scratching his design through it with
a needle in the manner of the stained-glass
painter. He painted mainly in black, with
slight touches of red and gold. In the
beaker illustrated he used for inspiration
an engraving of a gypsy procession by
Jacques Callot (1592-1635; Callot’s work,
depicting scenes of Italian life with fan-
tastic caricature, was very popular in the
17th and 18th centuries).
Adding: The Skill of the Decorator
Johann Schaper gained some followers,
one of whom, like himself, was a window-
glass painter. This was Johann Ludwig
Paber, who also painted faience. Herman
Benckcrtt of Frankfort-on-Main was an-
other of Schapers known followers. The
Humpen illustrated is a remarkably fine
example of the Schwarzlot technique,
probably the work of one of Schaper’s
imitators. The scene shows a man being
pushed into a pigsty by a laughing and
gesticulating crowd—presumably for
drunkenness, for the Latin inscription on
the reverse is a diatribe against drinking.
After 1700 the Schwarzlot technique was
carried on in Bohemia and Silesia by
independent decorators. Though they
were using the same medium, in style and
subject their work was very different.
They concentrated on landscapes, hunting
scenes, warriors and scenes from peasant
life, then replaced these by scroll-and-
strap-work, Chinese figures, putti and
fantastic animals.
In Spain a distinct style of enamelling
glass emerged in the late 15th, 16th and
early 17th centuries. It originated in
Barcelona, where glass-makers were in
considerable rivalry with Venice towards
the end of the 15th century. The most
important product of the Barcelona crafts-
men was their enamelled ware, which
surprisingly showed a complete inde-
pendence of Venetian models. The colours
they used for their enamels were notably a
light yellowish-green, in combination with
yellow, white and lavender blue, and
occasionally they used touches of black,
red and brown. Their style of enamelling
has been described as primitive, but also
as powerful in design. The motifs they
used were Near-Eastern in feeling, such as
stylised trees, arabesque foliage, running
animals and pairs of birds. Occasionally,
figures in 16th-century European costume
were used. The vase illustrated was a
favourite shape, showing a typical motif
resembling a small fruit with calyx attached
which was also found on Venetian glass.
Enamelled decoration on glass, though
familiar on the Continent from the 15th
century onwards, was apparently never
attempted in England until the middle of
the 18th century. Two types of enamelling
emerged in the third quarter of the 18th
century, one practised by the Beilby
family of Newcastle-on-Tyne, and the
other practised on the opaque white glass
of the period (see Opaque White Glass).
William Beilby (1740-1819) and his sister
Mary (1749-97) were recorded by Thomas
Bewick, the wood-engraver, to have ‘had
constant employment of enamel-painting
of glass’. William had learned the art of
enamelling in Birmingham, and proceeded
to enamel glasses from about 1762. At
what point Mary joined him in his work is
not known, for their glasses are signed
simply ‘Beilby’. Their brother Ralph
Beilby (1743—1817), to whom Thomas
Bewick was apprenticed, may have had
some influence on their work through his
knowledge of heraldic engraving.
The first Beilby enamelled work was of an
heraldic nature, in both white and coloured
enamel on glasses or goblets with ogee or
bucket-shaped bowls. The Beilbys’ style
changed about 1774, and subjects such as
scenes of hunting, fishing and shooting,
pastoral scenes including ruins, and Chin-
ese subjects appeared, the shapes of the
glasses becoming more diverse. Colours
were not always used on these glasses, and
the subjects were often rendered in white
monochrome, sometimes with a faint tint
of blue or pink. Occasionally they followed
the motifs found on engraved glasses of the
period, such as hops, barley and the flower-
ing vine. Beilby glasses more often than
not have an opaque white enamel-twist
stem. Thomas Bewick became attached to
Mary Beilby, who unfortunately in her
early twenties suffered a paralytic stroke.
The brother and sister left Newcastle-on-
Tyne after the death of their mother in
1778, and went to Fife in Scotland, where
apparently they did not continue their
work.
Hi. 105 mm (4-15 in.)
BEAKER WITH CUTTING, GILDING AND
ENAMEL PAINTING
By Anton kothgasser, Vienna, Austria, r.1825
Hi. 115 mm (4-5 in.)
Many drinking and souvenir glasses with
translucent enamelling still exist which
were decorated by Samuel Mohn (horn
1762 in Weissenfels, died 1815 in Dresden)
and his son, Gottlob Samuel Mohn (born
1789 in Weissenfels and died 1825 in
Vienna). Their chief technical innovation
was the preparation of transparent enam-
els, in contrast with the heavy opaque
enamels used particularly in the 16th and
17th centuries. Samuel Mohn had pre-
viously been a painter of silhouettes on
porcelain. His son, who secured the
patronage of the Emperor, painted sil-
houettes on glass tumblers, as well as views
and allegorical figure-subjects. The Mohns
were among the first to cater for the market
for mementoes caused by the revival of
travel for its own sake, after the finish of
the Napoleonic wars. They worked on a
large scale, helped by apprentices, and
using transfer printing for outlines to
speed up the process, but the delicacy of
their paintings, usually on glasses in the
Ranfthecher form, makes these a worthy
item for collectors.
The Mohns’ discovery of transparent
enamels was further improved by a Vien-
nese porcelain and glass decorator, Anton
Kothgasser (1769-1851). He was a painter
from the Imperial Porcelain Factory, who
started working on stained glass with
Gottlob Mohn. He managed to make his
colours more brilliant than the Mohns’,
and made full use of yellow stain, or the
stain made from a compound of silver, as
used on stained glass windows. His glasses
are usually waistcd, with a heavy cut base
and sometimes lavishly gilt, as in the one
illustrated. Views of towns, portraits,
genre scenes and flowers, sometimes
copied, are featured in his work. His
glasses have been described as the finest
examples of the Viennese Biedermewr
style. Kothgasser and the Mohns had
many pupils and many imitators. In the-
same movement was Franz Anton Siebel
(1777-1842) of Lichtenfels in Upper
Franconia.
PERFUME BOTTLE IN COLOURLESS GLASS,
ENAMELLED AND GILT
Emile Galle, France, dated 1880
I li 157 mm (613 in.)
‘CROWN MILANO’ EWER WITH ROPE HANDLE
Ml. Washington Glass Company, U.S.A.
Ht. 254 mm (10 in.)
Emile Galle (1846 1904) the great French
glass-maker, is less well-known for his
enamelled work than for his work in the
field of cameo glass. Yet he was an expert
in the art of enamelling, and showed this
gift in his first major exhibition in Paris in
1878. It was there that he established his
reputation as an inventive and original
glass artist, using—among other tech-
niques—enamelled decoration on triple-
cased glass with gold leaf insertions. At the
exhibition in Paris in 1884 he showed
examples of clear colourless glass decorated
with enamelling, cutting and engraving.
At the 1889 Exhibition in Paris he showed
his finest works. His colours had taken on
a new softness, and a fresh note of lyricism
could be sensed in his work. The decisive
factor in his work seems to have been
Japanese art, and after 1889 he developed
to maturity the ‘nature-style’ that was to
epitomise his thoughts and ideas and was
to bring him his greatest fame. The
singular lyricism ol his work can be seen in
the enamelled perfume bottle illustrated.
An elegant painted and enamelled glass-
ware was produced by the Mt. Washington
Glass Company, New Bedford, Mass.,
towards the end of the 19th century. It was
first called ‘Albertine’, though a ware that
was the same in texture, shape and
decoration was advertised more cxotically
as ‘Crown Milano’ in about 1890. Unless
the perishable paper label survives, ‘Al-
bertine’ cannot be differentiated from
unmarked ‘Crown Milano’. Frederick S.
Shirley and Albert Steffin of that firm were
issued with a patent in 1886 for a means of
decorating an opal glassware. The articles,
which had a convex ribbed body, were
treated as follows: a perforated corrugated
stencil was laid against them; pulverised
carbon was dusted against this, which left
a design for the enameller to follow when
the stencil was taken away, so that there
was no distortion in the finished product.
When ‘Crown Milano’ was made, a blank
in white opal glass was shaped by free-
blowing, moulding or press-moulding.

COVERED GOBLET IN FILIGREE
Probably Venice, IiaK, laic iftthorcarly 171I1
century. III. J30 mm (13 in.)
(See also colour photograph 0)
Stangenglas in filigree glass
Germany,-lale 16th century
lit. 300-J mm (1206 in.)
Filigree glass first came into use in Venice
in the second quarter of the 16th century,
and is referred to in Hiringuccio’s De la
Piroiechnica (1540). It is still made
there today, by means of the following
method. First, a stock of glass rods con-
taining decorative (usually opaque white)
twists is prepared. Small canes of opaque
white glass are heated and laid on a gather
of clear, colourless glass. These are mar-
vered into the surface, and a fresh gather
is made, so they arc embedded in the ‘gob’.
This is reheated, swung so that it lengthens,
and another rod is attached to its other
end. One man stands and rotates his rod to
give the pattern a twist. The man holding
the other end walks quickly backwards,
until the twisting gob has stretched 20 feet
or so. I leated lengths of rod are then laid
out on a metal plate. A gather of clear,
colourless glass is flattened into a disc,
then rolled along the rods, picking them up
to form a rough cylinder.
In the next stage of making filigree glass,
the rods are bedded together by being
rolled on a flat slab. The cylinder is swung
like a pendulum, to extend the glass. The
end is then cut oft”, and the cylinder is
closed, so that when it is blown the walls
become thin and smooth. A vessel is
formed from this cylinder. Thus, by
reheating and blowing an assembly ol rods
containing opaque white twists, the Vene-
tians formed vessels having a delicate white
filigree pattern within their thin walls. To
accomplish this took years of training.
The Romans made bowls by winding a
heated rod enclosing white threads spirally
on a mould and joining it by reheating, a
technique that has been called ‘filigrane
glass’.
The technique of making filigree glass
was in widespread use, and continued long
in fashion. Note the filigree ornament on
the typically German glass form illus-
trated.
FILIGREE CANES OR STEMS
Illustration taken from Mantis uj’ Classmakmg in
All Ages, by Alexander Sauzay (London, 1870)
Filigree canes were used both in the pro-
duction of filigree vessels and for simple
use as stems of wine-glasses and the like.
The actual making of the canes themselves
demanded a high degree of craftsmanship
on the part of the workers. Georges Bon-
temps of the glass factory of Choisy-le-Roy
in 1823 published a work describing some
of the Venetian techniques in the produc-
tion of filigree glass. To produce the
filigree canes, he explained, a cylindrical
mould in cither metal or fireclay was lined
with canes of coloured glass alternating
with rods of clear colourless glass. The
glass-maker next took a gather of glass on
the end of his blow-pipe which he fash-
ioned into a cylinder shape to fit into the
mould. He inserted this into the heated
mould and pressed the cylinder against the
rods which adhered to it. After marvering,
the end of the cylinder was then heated and
held with the pincers.
The glass-maker rolled his pipe with his
left hand, which caused the rod to form a
spiral with the coloured canes on the
outside; this was cut into the desired
lengths. If an internally spiralling line was
required inside a cane, a small solid
cylinder was first prepared in clear colour-
less glass, and a coloured cane attached to
its side. A further gather of glass was taken
to cover this, to make a larger cylinder
shape to go into the mould which held the
coloured canes, as before. As the small
coloured cane was not in the centre of the
cylinder, upon being twisted it assumed a
spiral shape down the centre of the
column. The other coloured rods spiralled
on the outer surface of the column, pro-
ducing a delicate and delightful effect. The
variations on the theme of opaque twists
and colour twists can be seen particularly
well in English 18th-century wine-glass
stems.
Adding: The Glass-maker’s Skill
CHAMPAGNE GLASS WITH ENGRAVED BOWL AND
DOUBLE LOOPED STEM CONTAINING TWISTED
COLOURED THREADS
George Bacchus & Sons, England, about 1850
Hi. 127 mm (5 in.)
In the early 19th century the decorative
arts in England were looking back to past
styles for inspiration. At first, glass in
England was little affected, owing mainly
to the glass-makers’ ignorance of the
historic glass styles. By the 1840’s, how-
ever, Venetian glass was considered re-
spectable for imitation. English glass-
makers’ notions of Venetian techniques
were to begin with rather vague, although
they probably improved a little after the
exhibition of Venetian glass in the Society
of Arts exhibition of Mediaeval Art in 1850.
During the years immediately preceding
the 1851 exhibition the practice was
revived of incorporating glass canes, both
opaque white and coloured, with the body
of the vessel. This hailed back to the days
of Venetian glass and the glass of 18th-
century England. Multi-coloured filigree
canes were used for stems of wine-glasses,
and sometimes the stems themselves were
twisted in Venetian styles, as above.
COMPOTIER IN ‘VENETIAN FILIGREE’
Made by John Northwood for Stevens & Williams,
England, about 1887. Ht. 20T mm (8 in.)
The firms of George Bacchus & Sons,
Birmingham, and Apsley Pcllatt’s Falcon
Glass-house in Southwark, London, pro-
duced wine-glasses with colour twist stems
in the mid-19th century. The Venetian
influence was also felt by the firm of
W. H., B. & J. Richardson of Stourbridge,
who exhibited an item with a ‘threaded
Venetian stem’ in the Society of Arts
Exhibition in 1849. From 1849 onwards
the firm of Rice Harris & Son of Birming-
ham made threaded glass, and twisted
stems were a feature of Lloyd & Summer-
field’s display at the 1851 Exhibition.
After Antonio Salviati’s exhibition of
revived Venetian techniques in Paris in
1867 manufacturers were fully aware of
the historical methods of production.
However, exact reproductions of Venetian
w;ork were rarely attempted in England for
the general market, probably because of
the unsuitability of the English lead-
crystal glass. An exception is this ‘Venetian
filigree’ compotier made by John North-
wood for Stevens & Williams
most popular designs
was the so-called ‘folded handkerchief,
where a square of glass decorated with
filigree was loosely ‘folded’ into the shape
of a vase. Vcnini, who died in 1959, was
one of the most important artists in glass
in recent times. In 1921 he entered a
partnership with Giacomo Cappcllin and
established the firm of ‘Vctri Soffiati,
Muranesi (lappellin-Venini & G’ pro-
ducing glass based on old Venetian pic-
tures. After a successful showing at the
Paris Exhibition in 1925 Vcnini estab-
lished his own factory, ‘Vcnini and C.\ in
Murano, discarded his earlier purism and
began to exploit the effects of colour and
texture in glass. He revived old Venetian
techniques, such as filigree and mosaic
work. At the time of his death his factory
consisted ol mure than .1 hundred glass-
blowers, who were experienced in most of
the ancient techniques. It was his aim to
join the old glass-making techniques with
modern Italian taste.
ewe* in millejiori oi ass with sii.VFJt-Gll.t mounts
Venice, Italy, 10th century, lit. 126 mm (495 in.)
Millefiori Glass: The name ‘millejiori1 (a
thousand flowers) was first given to mosaic
glass when the technique was taken up at
Venice in Renaissance times. The first
chapter covers the technique of mosaic
glass, in which vessels were produced by
fusing cut sections of glass rods held on to
a core with an outer mould, and then
ground and polished on both sides. The
term millejiori has, however, been applied
in retrospect to some of those Roman
mosaic glasses, where the fragments were
of rosette-like design. Egyptian craftsmen,
who for centuries were so skilled in the
mosaic technique, were later attracted to
the courts of tbe early Islamic rulers. It is
reasonably certain they were practising
1 heir technique in the 9th century A.D. at
the Abbasid court at Samarra, where finds
of mosaic glass (probably used as wall
decoration) were discovered by German
archaeologists in 1912 14.
vase in millefiori glass
E. Barovicr, Venice, Italy, late, ioth century
Ht. 203 mm (8 in.)
(See also colour photograph 10)
The millefiori glass of the Venetians, which
closely resembles Roman mosaic glass, was
produced by a different method. The
sections of glass rod were made in the
usual way, but were then embedded in a
gather of clear colourless or clear pale blue
glass, which was then blown to its final
shape. The difference in technique can be
seen more clearly in the vase illustrated,
made at the Barovier glass-house in
Murano in the late 19th century. The
simple floral decoration, in green, blue and
red glass sections, is set into a background
of sections of turquoise encircling clear
colourless glass, the whole embedded in
clear colourless glass. The general effect is
of a network of glass, rather than of
individual sections floating in a clear
colourless background. The vase is signed
‘E. Barovier, Murano’, so is presumably
the work of Ercolc Barovier (b.1889), who
helped to create the modern style of Italian
glass-making together with Paolo Venini
(1895-1959).
vase in millefiori glass
Clichy, France, c. 1845-50. Ht. 245 mm (9-63 in.)
The making of millefiori glass was not con-
fined to Italy. There is evidence that such
vessels were made in Silesia and other
areas of Central Europe in the 18th
century. The Hoffhungstal Works in
Silesia were producing millefiori vessels in
1833, and later they were made at Schone-
beck near Magdeburg. The French crafts-
men of Clichy, St. Louis and Baccarat
produced excellent millefiori glass in the
19th century; the articles included paper-
weights, inkstands, pen-rests, wafer-stands
and rulers. The vase illustrated is a rare
and beautiful example of Clichy millefiori
glass, having the name ‘Clichy’ enclosed in
a tiny cane within the design. This French
glass is notable for the quality of work-
manship, harmony of colour and beauty of
design. France’s superiority in the making
of vessel glass was a comparatively late
development. Her craftsmen had been
pre-eminent in the making of stained and
painted window glass, and later of mirror
glass, but it was only in the 19th century
that they matched their achievements in
vessel glass..
PAPERWEIGHT
Probably Rice Harris & Son, England, about 1850
Diam. 70 mm (275 in.)
DISH IN GLASS
by Antonio Salviali, Italy, f.1880
Diam. 178 mm (7 in.)
Of all the novelties in glass of mid-iQth
century England, the best remembered is
the millejiori paperweight. At the time they
were made they, were considered to be of
little importance, and were more likely to
be sold in a stationers’ shop than at a glass-
dealers’. Probably the firms that made
filigree or threaded stems experimented
with paperweights, but it is known that the
firm of George Bacchus & Sons of Birm-
ingham were making millejiori paper-
weights in 1848 and 1849. From a reference
in the An Journal in 1849 it seems that the
firm of Rice, Harris & Son of Birmingham
were also producing them at this time. As
the Rice Harris works were also known as
the Islington Glass Works, it seems reason-
able that weights found with canes lettered
IGW came from this factory, as in the
example illustrated. The fashion for paper-
weights came from France, whence they
were imported to England in great num-
bers.
In the 19th century, Renaissance styles of
glass-making were revived in Italy. The
old Venetian colour techniques were re-
vived about 1830, and by i860 Antonio
Salviati (1816-1900) had started a large-
scale commercial production of glass in
traditional styles. Much extravagant and
sentimental work was done, Salviati’s
forms being gaudy in colour and over-
elaborate. Most of the other Muranese
glass-makers followed him in making
pastiches of i6th-and 17th-century Vene-
tian glass, aimed at the tourist market. At
the same time there was a small production
of simpler glass wares in Venice, with
Salviati producing plain shapes in clear
colourless glass with applied decoration.
He was also known for his straightforward
copies of the old classic colour techniques
of Venice, such as the millejiori dish
illustrated. After the First World War,
Functionalist ideas gave a new stimulus to
the traditionalism of Venetian glass-mak-
ing and a truly modern style was estab-
lished, notably by Paolo Vcnini and
Ercole Barovier.
IRIDESCENT millefiori VASE PAPERWEIGHT VASE WITH CROCUS DESIGN
By Tiffany, U.S.A., late 19th century/early 20th By Tiffany, U.S.A. Ht. 16; mm (0-5 in.)
century. Ht. 279 mm (11 in.)
Louis Comfort Tiffany at his works in
Corona, Long Island, U.S.A., produced
many kinds of glassware between 1.1885
to 1924. Among these was millefiori glass
of a style not seen before. Tiffany’s love of
natural floral effects can be seen in this
work. Millefiori rods as intricately and
beautifully made as any on the Continent
were produced at his works and put to use-
in many different ways by Tiffany crafts-
men. The size of the rods ranged from \
inch to 4-5 inches in diameter. Small
white millefiori florets with red, green,
yellow or blue centres were embedded in
the outer surface of glass vases and bowls,
and were marvered-in to a smooth finish.
Green glass leaves and tendrils were added
as decoration to create the illusion of
flowering vines. The natural fluidity of his
work can be seen in the example illustrated.
A variation, and a most beautiful one, on
the technique of millefiori was Tiffany’s
so-called ‘Paperweight glass’. Lengths of
millefiori rod were used to simulate coral
growths, aquatic plants, morning glories,
narcissus, daffodils. Queen Anne’s lace,
animals and a host of other motifs. These
coloured decorative glass designs were
laid upon and embedded in an inner layer
of glass, with another gather of clear glass
coating over the original decorated piece.
Sometimes the inner layer of glass was
made iridescent before it received its outer
layer, which caused a lovely mirror-like
shimmering effect. The outer layer of glass
was also frequently made slightly irides-
cent. Occasionally patterns were engraved
into paperweight glass, giving striking
depth to the piece. The predominant
motifs in the paperweight technique are
floral and under-water marine life. They
are probably the rarest of the Tiffany
techniques, and the most difficult to find.
Aventurine Glass: The Venetians are
credited with the invention of Aventurine
glass. In appearance it is generally yellow-
ish, with a sparkle to it suggestive of
sprinkled gold dust. No one knows exactly
how the Venetians made this attractive
glassware, but the results of more recent
experiments may throw some light on
their methods. In i860 the French chemist
Hautefeuille made Aventurine glass by
adding iron or fine brass turnings enclosed
in paper to the hot glass. The glass turned
red and opaque, and then became milky
and full of bubbles. The furnace draught
was cut off and the covered crucible
containing the glass covered with ashes.
After being slowly cooled, the pot was
broken and the Aventurine glass taken out.
In 1865 another chemist, Pelouze, made
Aventurine equal to that of the Venetians
by using 250 parts of sand, 100 of carbonate
of soda, 50 of carbonate of lime and 40 of
bichromate of potash.
Aventurine glass was sold in rods or large
pieces to foreign factories by Venetian
glass-makers. These were broken down
and crushed into various sizes for use as a
decorative material. Green (chrome), pink
(chrome in the presence of tin) and bronze
Aventurine can be found in English,
Continental and American glassware of
the 19th century. More recently, the
Fostoria Glass Company of Moundsville,
West Virginia, made green Aventurine
glass by supersaturating a high lead glass
with chrome oxide. The chrome oxide
dissolved into the glass during the melt,
but as the glass cooled it could not hold all
the chrome oxide in solution so that crys-
tals formed in the glass; these were large
enough to reflect light and so gave the
Aventurine appearance. Aventurine is also
supposed to have been made by the addi-
tion of copper to the mix. Aventurine has
been called ‘Glass of the Golden Star’ by
the Chinese, and is also known as ‘Gold-
stone’.
JUG with trailed decoration
Egypt, second quarter of the 15th century B.C.
Ht. 88′mm (3-45 in.)
Only a skilled glass-maker could have pro-
duced the decorative effects described in the
last chapter, but much added decoration
found on glass vessels is the result of I he art
of the decorator, and owes little to actual
glass-making technology. The expertise of
the decorator in the ornamentation oj glass
vessels can be seen in the enamelling, painting
and gilding techniques, in their various
forms. Indeed, the decorator has been
involved in the ornamentation oj glass from
earliest times; it was an enameller’s hand
that decorated one of I he oldest known glass
vessels of Egypt. A purist might consider the
decoration of glass by the actual glass-maker
more valid than by the decorator, but as these
two chapters show, there has been a place for
both through the ages.
Enamelled Class: The art of enamelling
glass is a technique which can be dated
definitely back to the 15th century B.C.
The small Egyptian jug illustrated, bear-
ing the name of the Egyptian Pharaoh
Tuthmosis III, is the earliest enamelled
glass known to us. It is in opaque light blue
glass with yellow, white and dark blue
opaque trails and with white and yellow
powdered glass fired on in the manner of
enamel. It has been core-formed, with a
ground and polished surface on the rim
and underneath the base. The hieroglyphic
inscription on the shoulder, part of which
can be seen, translated, reads: ‘The good
god Men-Kheper—Re, given life’. Tuth-
mosis III (c. 1504-1450 B.C.) was one of
the most powerful of the Pharaohs of the
1 Si h I )ynasty and under him flourished all
cultural activities, including glass-making.
Enamel is in essence a low-firing glass
crushed to powder, which can be painted
on to a vessel, with the aid of a bonding
agent like honey. It can be fused to the
vessel at a lower temperature than will
cause the vessel to warp or sag in the
furnace. Enamelling appeared to be an
isolated phenomenon of the Egyptian 18th
Dynasty and fell into disuse at the end of
the period. It was certainly practised in
Roman times, and one or two different
types of work can be picked out, possibly
belonging to different schools within the
Roman Empire. Motifs include birds,
vines, pygmies, cranes, animals, hunting
scenes and figural subjects. There is no
exact knowledge of how the Romans did
their enamelling, and one can only guess
that they followed later methods of which
something is known. From earliest an-
tiquity there was a trade in cakes or ingots
of glass enamel for the use of less special-
ised glass-makers. Certain colours, notably
turquoise, sealing-wax red and white,
were traded round the world from the
earliest times of glass-making.
EWER, ‘DAPHNE’, IN OPAQUE WHITE GLASS WITH
ENAMELLING AND GILDING
Possibly Antioch, Syria, late 2nd to early 3rd
century A.D. III. 222 mm (875 in.)
Perhaps the most remarkable example of
Roman enamelling and gilding is the so-
called ‘Daphne’ ewer, now in The Corning
Museum of Glass, New York. It was
probably made in Antioch on the Orontes
in Syria. Antioch was a large city and a
centre for culture and wealth for many
hundreds of years, and the vase could have
been one of the luxury items the city
produced. The vase itself is made of opaque
white glass, richly enamelled and gilded
with a scene that depicts the story of
Daphne, who was turned by her protecting
father into a tree when the pursuing love-
sick Apollo tried to touch her. The
inscription on the shoulder, translated,
reads: ‘The Beautiful’, referring to the
lovely Daphne. The earliest written men-
tion of the techniques of enamelling comes
in the work De Diversis Artibus (Concern-
ing Divers Arts), compiled by the monk
Theophilus, probably in the first half of
the 12th century A.D. (Continued)

JUG  DARK GREEN BOTTLE GLASS Willi
c OMBED OPAQUE WHITE THREADED DECORA I KIN
England, laic iSth early 19thcentury
Hi. 105 mm (4-13 in.)
PIPE IN (TEAR COLOURLESS GLASS WITH OPAQUE
WHITE STRIPED DECORATION
Probably Sowerby’s Ellison Glassworks, England,
about 1X60. I.englh 367 mm (145 in.)
Vessels made from bottle glass, and later
clear glass, with applied glass threads,
usually opaque white in colour, marvered
and combed to the surface of the glass,
have come to be known as ‘Nailsea’ glass.
The tradition that associates this type of
glassware with the Nailsea glass-house,
near Bristol, England, is a strong one, but
since this factory made crown window
glass, the earlier bottle glass wares arc
unlikely to have been made there. Because
most of these vessels were made as a
sideline, little documentary evidence re-
mains to show exactly when and where
they were produced. The few dated
examples come from the early part of the
ioth century. It is known that clear glass
‘Nailsea’ type wares were made at a glass-
house in Warrington in Lancashire. ‘Alloa’
glass is the Scottish term for a ‘Nailsea’
style glass. Though there is little direct
e\ idence, there is no reason why the Alloa
Glass-house in Scotland should not have
produced this glassware.
Many other simple wares in a style akin to
‘Nailsea’ glass were produced in the first
half of the 19th century. Among these were
the friggcrs, or glass fantasies—unlikely
objects such as fantastic tobacco pipes,
rolling pins, walking sticks, shepherds’
crooks, bells, witchballs and musical in-
struments represented in glass. Many of
the rolling pins and most of the tobacco
pipes have applied glass threads in opaque-
white or coloured glass, in true ‘Nailsea’
tradition. It is impossible to say where
most friggcrs were made, and they should
be considered as individual pieces of glass-
makers’ skill made both for amusement
and for commercial purposes. They were
produced as private sidelines in the largest
window glass concerns such as Pilkington
Brothers of St. Helens. Probably triggers
were made throughout the 10th century
but a new interest in them appeared at the
end of the century, when small factories
started to produce ruby pipes and bells,
spun glass ships and birds and walking
sticks in quantity.
JUG IN AMBER GLASS WITH WHITE BLOBBED
DECORATION
Found in one of the Aegean islands, mid-tst
century A.D. Ht. 238 mm (9*35 in.)
Marvering small pieces ofglass into the body
of a vessel is a somewhat cruder form of
decoration than applied glass thread-work.
The Romans certainly favoured this mode
of decoration for their vessels. This jug, in
amber-coloured glass, has opaque white
blobbed decoration. The white blobs cover
the whole of the body and the neck of the
vessel, though only a few stray ones can be
found upon the base. Pieces of white
opaque glass would have been scattered on
a flat stone slab (marver) and caught up on
the hot gather of amber glass on the
Roman glass-worker’s blow-pipe. By work-
ing the gather of glass on the marver, he
would bring the white glass level with the
surface of the amber glass, so that a smooth
surface was achieved when the vessel was
eventually blown. This 1st century A.D.
decoration was probably produced in
Northern Italy.
Adding: The Glass-maker’s Skill
FLASK IN PALE BLUE GLASS WITH ‘PEBBLED’
DECORATION
France, 17th century. Ht. 157 mm (6-13 in.)
Though the technique was never wholly
forgotten, the next notable instance of
small pieces of glass being used as a
decoration on the surface of the vessel
came in France in the second half of the
16th century. The technique had been
practised by the Venetians, and was copied
from them by the French glass-makers.
Their multi-coloured ‘marbled’ or ‘peb-
bled’ glass usually consisted of bright
opaque colours splashed on a light blue
glass ground. Shapes favoured by the
French glass-house which produced this
glass were the characteristically French
pilgrim-bottle and barrel-shaped vessels.
There are ample records that Venetian and
Altarist glass-makers worked in France
from the late 15th century onwards,
though few examples of their work have
been recognised. This ‘pebbled’ glass is a
genuine example of French glass a la
fag on de Venise, but remains distinctly
French in style.
Adding: The Glass-maker’s Skill
JUG IN GREEN BOTTLE GLASS WITH FLECKED
DECORA! IDS
England, 18th century. Ht. 181 mm (7-13 in.)
Glasses with flecked decoration, consisting
of fragmented coloured glasses marvered
into the surface of the glass, have often
been brought under the general heading of
‘Nailsea’ glass. This was indeed a charac-
teristic form of decoration for ‘Nailsea’
glass, besides the bold looped and striped
decoration described in the previous sec-
tion. As already mentioned, ‘Nailsea’
glass must be regarded as a style rather
than as a product of any specific glass-
house. Generally speaking, ‘Nailsea’ glas-
ses were made in green bottle glass,
which was used for its cheapness, as it
avoided the Glass Excise Acts of England
(repealed in 1845). Clear glass with striped
and flecked decoration is sometimes also
ascribed to Nailsea and Wrockwardine
Wood, though it was probably produced at
many of the other centres that made this
type of glassware. Products notably in-
cluded jugs, bottles and flasks in the flecked
ware, though more fanciful examples can
be found, such as top hats.
Hobhs, Brockunier& Company, U.S.A., 1884
Ht. 152 mm (6 in.)
In 1884 a patent was issued to William
Leighton, Jr, of Hobbs, Brockunier &
Company of Wheeling, West Virginia, for
his method of producing ‘Spangled Glass-
ware’. His process was a simple one. Flakes
of biotite or mica were laid on a marver and
picked up on a gather of opaque white or
transparent coloured glass. The gather
with the flakes adhering was then dipped
into a pot of clear colourless glass, which
locked in the ’spangles’. The gather could
then be blown and shaped into the desired
article. Spangled glass became one of the
most popular products in both art and
table glassware produced by the Wheeling
company. Sowerby’s, of Newcastle-upon-
Tyne, England, produced a similar ware,
usually with a deep blue base called ‘Blue
Nugget’. ‘Spatterglass’ is similar to Span-
gled glass, except that instead of metallic
flakes, variously coloured fragments of
glass were marvered into the opaque white
or coloured glass base.
About 1884. Ht. 127 mm (5 in.)
In the same style as the foregoing were the
so-called ‘Vasa Murrhina’ glass products.
Coloured glass and mica flakes were em-
bedded in the opaque base, with an overall
transparent casing. John Charles De Voy
of the Vasa Murrhina Art Glass Company
of Sandwich, Mass., and Hartford, Conn.,
registered a patent for this type of glass-
ware in 1884. Sheets or particles of mica
were coated with gold, silver, copper or
nickel. The coated mica was then incor-
porated on to a gather of glass, which was
subjected to heat. This caused the glass to
flow over and adhere to the mica. The
gather could then be blown into the article
required. Shards of ‘Vasa Murrhina’ type
glass have been found on the site of the
company’s factory in Sandwich, also on
the old factory site of the Boston &
Sandwich Works. Patents for this type of
glassware were registered in England
between 1878 and 1882.
WINE-GLASS INCORPORATING rHREADS Of OPAQUI
WHITE GLASS
Venice, Italy, 16th century. Ht. 131 mm (5-13 in.)
Incorporating threads of opaque white glass
into the body of a vessel was a development
of the Venetian glass-makers. Thin rods
of opaque white glass (lattirno) were
probably set at exact intervals round the
inside of a heat-resistant open container.
A gather of clear, colourless glass would be
blown into the centre of the container, and
the rods of glass caught and worked very
gently into the gather of glass. The bubble,
now containing the white threads, could
then be blown to the desired shape.
Another method that might have been
used by the Venetians was to lay alternate
rods of opaque white and clear, colourless
glass side by side on a tray, and then to fuse
them together in a kiln. These could then
be caught up on a gather of clear, colour-
less glass and blown to the shape required.
In both these processes, in order to make
the ends of the rods meet, the end of the
bubble would have to be pinched together
and the unwanted glass cut away.
The influence of Venetian glass-making
spread all over Europe, notably to Spain,
Germany, France, the Netherlands and
England, during the 16th and 17th cen-
turies. Thus the technique of incorporat-
ing threads of lattimo glass into the body
of a vessel appears in other glass-making
centres besides Venice. Each of the Euro-
pean countries mentioned developed its
own version in the facon de Venise, the
influence of the local glass-blowers making
itself felt, so that pure Venetian inspiration
vanished and strong regional characteris-
tics began to prevail in the glassware. The
jug illustrated—a remarkable example of
the use of broad vertical bands of lattimo
glass between very narrow lines of clear,
colourless glass—is, in shape, a vessel of
typical late mediaeval form in the Southern
Netherlands. The contemporary value of
the piece is reflected in the use of silver-
gilt mounts on rim, handle and base. A
similar glass is listed in the 1559 Inven-
tory of Queen Elizabeth I of England.
In Roman times glass-makers sometimes
decorated the edge of vessels with a rope-
pattern, where an opaque white thread was
twisted and embedded in clear, colourless
or coloured glass. This is the only early
parallel to the Venetian technique of
incorporating threads of white glass into a
vessel. The Italian glass-makers who
migrated to other countries, and their
pupils, certainly had full command of the
technique. As well as the illustrated flute
glass, which has made delicate use of the
technique in the long bowl, handsome-
tankards employing the technique were
produced at Liege or in the Netherlands.
In Germany, the popular tall cylindrical
glass, or ‘Stangenglas’, was not only made
of cristallo glass, but was often decorated
with these bands of lattimo glass incor-
porated into the vessel. Rarely, coloured
as well as opaque white threads were used,
in colours like yellow, purple and blue.
Adding: The Glass-maker’s Skill
A superb sophistication of” the technique
just described is shown in the plate
illustrated. It is in fact made up of two
plates, with opposing white radiating
thread decoration, which were fused to-
gether to form one piece. Tiny air bubbles
were caught between the threads, giving
the plate a rich and delicate appearance—a
wonderful example of the Venetian glass-
maker’s versatility. The essentials of the
technique have been copied successfully
by the American glass artist and tech-
nologist, Dominick Labino, of Grand
Rapids, Ohio. He placed 12 opaque white
threads in a metal container at even dist-
ances and worked these into a gather of
glass, as already described. He then blew
the gather into a bubble, catching the end
of it and twisting the glass one way so that
the threads spiralled to the left. After
forming a bowl shape, he put this into a
specially prepared crucible and placed it in
the annealing kiln to keep warm.
The next stage in the production of
Labino’s vetro di trina was to repeat the
procedure with another gather of glass.
this time with the 12 threads spiralling to
the right. The first bowl shape was then
taken out of the annealing kiln in its
container, and the second partially-blown
gather dropped into it, so that the two were
joined when further blowing was em-
ployed. The two joined paraisons were
then reheated, and a further gather of glass
taken over them, to give the finished object
added strength. From this Labino formed
in the usual way a dish which had opposing
white radiating thread decoration in the
Venetian tradition. The Italian name for
this type of glass means iace glass’; in
German it is known as ‘Netzglas’. Apsley
Pellatt in his book Curiosities of Glass-
making (London, 1849) describes basically
the same technique, whereby two cup-like
formations, one with milk-white canes
spirally applied inside the cup, the other
with milk-white canes spirally applied
outside, were combined, the former over
the latter, to produce a vessel in vetro di
trina. The technique was used in England
and on the Continent in the 19th century.
In the mid-iqth century, Bohemian,
French and English glass factories all
imitated Venetian techniques of glass
manufacture. This included the incor-
poration of opaque white or coloured
threads of glass into the body of a vessel.
So-called 19th-century ’striped’ glass fol-
lowed this technique. Coloured and clear,
colourless glass rods would line a mould.
A bubble of glass blown into the mould
picked up the rods, and they became as one
with the body glass. When the bubble of
glass was deftly twisted, the embedded
rods could be made to spiral around the
body of the finished vessel. To produce
the fine effect seen on the ewer illustrated
demanded a considerable amount of skill
on the part of the glass-maker. A patent
for ‘Improvements In Decorating Glass
With Stripes’ was taken out in 1885 by
V\ illiam Webb Boulton of Bonbon &
Mills, who had the Audnam Bank glass-
house in England.
Ice Glass: The Venetians decorated some
clear glass by plunging a bubble of hot
glass for a moment in water and then
reheating it. This produced a roughened,
fro/en or crackled appearance, given the
name ‘Ice Glass’. A further means of
producing a frosted effect upon glass is to
roll a bubble of glass over a marver that
has previously been covered with frag-
ments of broken glass. The fragments
adhere to the hot bubble, and when the
whole is slightly reheated, form an ‘icy’
effect. The bubble can then be worked to
form the desired article. The beaker
illustrated is a handsome example of the
Venetians’ work. The frosted texture is
only on the outer surface of the glass, the
interior surface remaining smooth to the
touch. Visually, these pieces appear to be
covered with cracks, but the reheating
makes them perfectly whole and quite sale
for use. Once the technique had been
invented by the Venetians, it spread
quickly throughout the Continent.
Apsley Pellatt (1791-1863), the 19th-
century glassmakcr of the Falcon Glass-
house in Southwark, London, continued
to make his mark on his trade by the
publication of two books on glass-making,
published respectively in 1821 and 1849.
In his Curiosities ofGlassmaking, published
in 1849, he described several of the
Venetian techniques, including the pro-
duction of ‘Ice Glass’ or frosted glass. At
the 1851 exhibition his firm made a special
display of the technique, which he called
‘Anglo-Venetian’. In his explanation he
shows how a gather of glass was slightly
inflated, then plunged at nearly white heat
into cold water; it was then immediately
reheated, giving a crackled effect on its
outer surface. The bottom of the bubble
was flattened and a pontil rod attached;
the blow-pipe was removed and the article
finished on the pontil rod. Great care had
to be taken not to overheat the article, as
this would melt out the frosting.
Apsley Pellatt claimed that the technique
of ‘Ice Glass’ was known and practised
only by the Venetians until he revived it in
the mid-i9th century. This would seem to
be incorrect, since several examples of the
technique are to be found from the
Continent between these dates. At first,
only clear colourless ‘Ice Glass’ was pro-
duced, to simulate real ice, but mid-igth
century fashion soon desired it to be
coloured. Usually the base glass was
coloured in ruby, rose, yellow, blue or
green, the fragments picked up being clear
and colourless. Occasionally the reverse
happened, the fragments being coloured
and the base glass clear and colourless. Ice
Glass known as ‘Craquelle’ and ‘Overshot’
was produced by the Boston & Sandwich
Works, and possibly by some other
American factories. It was advertised in
1883 by Hobbs, Brockunier & Company in
‘Rose, Sapphire, Old Gold and Marine
Green’ colourings.