CHAPTER XXII
CONTEMPORARY GLASS
The history of glass in the nineteenth century is mainly concerned with improvements in mechanical processes, by means of which it is now possible to turn out a perfectly clear white glass in large quantities at greatly reduced cost.
Meantime little heed has been given to the artistic merit of individual pieces. In fact, thanks in no small measure to one widely applied mechanical ‘improvement,’ the process namely of pressing into a mould, the highly trained skill of the glass-blower has been less and less called into play, so that now a complaint is heard, both in England and in France, of the difficulty of finding workmen thoroughly masters of the art. The last stage, indeed, in the decline of our English cut-glass was reached when ‘passable imitations’ of the facetted work were turned out by this ‘pressing’ process.
And yet from time to time attempts have been made on the one hand to give fresh life to old methods of work and schemes of decoration, on the other to develop the application of the material along new or previously little explored paths. Of what has been effected in Venice in the first of these directions something has already been said. In England, and we may add in Germany also (at Berlin, for instance, and at Ehrenfeld, near Cologne), these attempts have for the most part taken the direction of revivals, as when by the skilful use of the blowing-iron table-glass has been produced of graceful but rather fantastic outlines and with more or less reminiscence of Venetian prototypes. I need not dwell upon such efforts, as nothing in the way of a school has been founded. It is indeed noticeable that both in Germany and in England, in the case of the more expensive table-glass that we now see in the shop windows, the decoration, such as it is, has continued to be sought rather in processes of cutting and engraving on the old lines.
Various fantastic methods of surface decoration have indeed found favour at times. An artificial iridescence has been given to the surface by certain chemical agencies—perhaps the most elaborate instance of such decoration may be found in the ‘favrile’ glass of Messrs. Tiffany, the well-known goldsmiths of New York. But as a rule, the facility with which the desired result may be obtained at little expense by means of modern chemical and mechanical processes has led, in the case of glass, to that want of reticence and restraint and to that habit of resting content with the _à peu près_—the passable imitation—that are characteristic of so much of the modern art productions that fill the show-cases of exhibitions.
Somewhat greater interest may be found in certain applications of glass that have come to the front in France of recent years. Here at all events there is a public that takes some interest in the contemporary products of the decorative arts. In the yearly _Salons_, beside the pictures and the sculpture, these minor arts—jewellery, metal-work, fayence and glass—find a prominent place and a critical or enthusiastic public.
It is, however, only within the last few years that objects of glass have taken an important place among these exhibits, and that this is so is above all due to two men who, with considerable artistic talents, combine great energy and both scientific and technical knowledge—these are Émile Gallé and Henri Cros.
Already many years ago the art of enamelling on glass had been successfully revived in France—witness the reproduction of a Saracenic mosque lamp made by M. P. Brocard as far back as 1867.[284] But since that time glass, as a material capable of artistic applications, has been attacked upon new lines. When speaking of the glass of the Chinese, I have more than once pointed to the influence that the work of these people has apparently had upon certain new developments in France. Something of the sort—in the way, I mean, of treating glass as if it were a stone of varied colours, carnelian or onyx—was indeed attempted here in England as long ago as 1878, in the case of the cameo glass of Webb of Stourbridge. Contemporary with him, Eugène Rousseau was working in France with his _verres doublés et triplés_.
But these strange new methods of treating glass are above all associated with Émile Gallé, who at Nancy (where he was born in 1846) has built up something like a school. The material was attacked by him, as it were from every side. Advantage was taken of the facility with which, by means of powerful machinery, glass can now be rapidly cut into any desired shape. As in the case of the decoration of the modern porcelain of Sèvres and other places, a source of more than one heat-resisting colour has been found in chromium, and even such rare elements as thallium and iridium have been experimented with. By the skilful application of reducing and oxidising flames, local variations of colour are brought about, and (in this unconsciously following the Indian glass that I spoke of in the last chapter) the possibilities of artistic effect to be found in the presence of numberless minute bubbles have not been neglected. The Chinese have been surpassed in the strange pitted forms—in some cases recalling cork or other kinds of bark—that the surface of the glass has been made to assume. But above all, in the varied markings, in the _mouchetage_ and the arborescent forms, that loom out from the interior of the glassy mass, M. Gallé has outdistanced all his predecessors. Lately he has introduced pieces of metallic foil, or again crystalline masses of amianthus or mica, into the body of his glass; or again insects, realistically rendered in enamel—dragon-flies are a great favourite—are seen caught up within the mass.
Both Gallé and others have made frequent use of an incrustation process by which fragments of glass are worked into the surface of a soft paste—but this was a means of decoration known in Egypt in the days of the Ptolemies. Endless gradations of colour are obtained by laying or ‘soldering on’ successive thin layers of glass until the desired effect is obtained. To some such process are also due, it would seem, the delicate shades seen in the Tiffany glass. Finally, by the use of rapidly revolving boring-tools—some of them worked on a vertical axis—the hardest Bohemian glass may be quickly brought to the desired form.
Apart from the yearly exhibitions, examples of the glass of the Nancy school may be seen in Paris at the Luxembourg and at the École des Arts et Métiers. It cannot, however, be said that the general effect of this glass is, as a rule, either brilliant or decorative.
M. Gallé himself is something of a poet—of the _symboliste_ school, I should judge. What it is that he aims at expressing by means of this often sombre glass cannot indeed be better presented than in his own words:—‘Mist and dews half shroud and half reveal the fine veinings and splashings in a grey jade-crystal vase. A thick flushing of rose-tinted glass is carved into a chimera-like flower, half influorescent, half smiling, half weary, half orchid, half pansy. A beetle drags its slow length over the rust of the lichens. Side by side with flesh-tints and carnations we see bold touches of coral pink. A pale gleam steals through the dull maze of iridium. Vegetable shadows grin at us. Phantoms of bloom are dimly seen. A fossil shell engraved beneath the fragile work contains the glass-worker’s signature.’—(Quoted by H. Frantz, _Magazine of Art_, vol. xx. p. 269.)
Of quite another nature is the _pâte de verre_, a substance somewhat of the nature of a glass frit, which has been made use of by the French sculptor, M. Henri Cros, in the modelling of polychrome reliefs and friezes. I say ‘modelling,’ for this strange material can apparently be worked like wax or plaster at one stage of its preparation. When cold it is of so tough a nature that a nail may be driven into it. At the entrance of the new hall of Sculpture at the Luxembourg may be seen a relief of this _pâte de verre_ forming the back of a fountain. As a material it lies perhaps a little remote from the class of objects with which we have been occupied in this book. I mention it here as an example of the success which in France of late years has attended the attempt to take advantage of the new appliances and materials that, thanks to recent scientific discoveries, lie at the command of the artist and craftsman. Here, as in the case of the potter’s art, not only have old-world processes—those of the Far East above all—been revived, but a constant endeavour is being made to strike out in new directions.
INDEX
Achmin, glass from, 105, 163
Agricola, _De Re Metallica_, 260-262
Air-drawn stem, 326-327
Alabaster, imitation of, in glass, by Egyptians, 22
_Alabastra_, see _Unguentaria_.
Alchemists and glass in Germany, 288
Alchemy, early mediæval works on, 119-124
Aldrevandini beaker, 179
Alembics of mediæval alchemists, 125
Alembics and aludels of modern Indian glass, 346
Alexandria, importance in history of glass, 44
Alexandria, glass of mediæval time, 149 _note_
Alkali, source of, 12-13
Almeria, glass made near, 246-247
L’Altare, 174-175
L’Altare _versus_ Murano, 224
L’Altare, glass-workers from, in France, 223-224
Altarist families settled in France, 227
Altarists, difficulties with, in France, 236
Altarists in Netherlands, 240-241
Aludels of mediæval alchemists, 125
Alumina in glass, effect of excess of, 132
_Ammonitrum_, 78
Amsterdam, glass-houses at, 294
Analyses of glass, 9, 26, 53 _note_, 151, 335, 353 _note_
Anglo-Saxon glass, 107-113
Anglo-Saxon glass, where found, 110-111
Anglo-Saxon ‘prunted’ beakers, 110-111
Anglo-Saxon drinking-cups, 112-113
Anne Boleyn, glass with her initials, 306
Anthology, Greek, poem on glass-furnace, 80
Antimony as source of yellow in primitive glass, 29
Antwerp, glass made at, 241-242, 262
Antwerp, mediæval glass found near, 252 _note_
Antwerp, metropolis for glass, 303
‘Arena’ at Padua; lamps in fresco, 158
Aristophanes, possible mention of glass in, 41
Arles, Roman glass from, 81-82
Ascension Day, display of glass at Venice, 216, 261 _note_
Asiatic influence in Europe, 89-90
Assyrian glass, 39-40
D’Azeglio, Marquis Emanuele, his collection of painted glass, 142-143
_Azurro da vetro_, 218
Babylonia, turquoise-glass slabs from, 40-41
‘Balance-pan’ lamp-stands, 97 _note_, 101, 104, 158
Barbaro, Venetian ambassador to the Porte, 171
Barcelona, glass of, 247-249
Barcelona, opaque white glass, 249
_Barilla_, term explained, 13
_Barilla_, how prepared, 227
_Barilla_, Howell’s account of, 312
Barillet, or Baril, French form, 134, 238
Bavaria, Dukes of, introduce Venetians, 270-271
Bead, origin of English word, convenience of term, 184
Beads of early Egyptian Dynasties, 20
Beads from tombs of Mycenæan age, 35
Beads from early Rhodian tombs, 38
Beads in form of satyr masks, 38
Beads from Frankish and Germanic tombs, 109
Beads, guilds at Venice and Murano, 183
Beads, early distribution from Venice, 183, 190
Beads, Venetian, grinding by water-power, 185
Beads, process of manufacture, 185-187
Beads, process of manufacture from hollow cane, 185-186
Beads, process of manufacture from solid rod, 186-187
Beads, stores in London and Amsterdam, 189
Beads made at Nuremberg; at Amsterdam, 292
Beads, Bohemian industry, 292-293
Beads from India, 343
Beads, _see also_ Chevron beads.
Bede on glass-workers brought from Gaul, 113
_Bekerschroeven_, or ‘Beaker screws,’ 295
Berovieri, his enamelled cup, 194-195
Berthelot, M., on chemistry of Middle Ages, 120-125
_Bidoro_, Japanese name for glass, 354
Biringuccio on Venetian glass, 215
Blancourt, de, _Art of Glass_, 316 _note_, 319
Blowing of glass, 7-8, 14
Blowing of glass, importance of discovery of process, 19
Blowing of glass, probable origin in Western Asia, 42
Blowing of glass, when and where discovered, 44, 59
Blowing of glass, at first supplementary to moulding, 47
Blowing of glass, first described by Theophilus, 128-130
Blowing-iron, how used, 14
Blown glass unknown in Ancient Egypt, 19-20
Blown glass, when first made, 20
Blown glass, early simple forms, 59
Blue colours in Egyptian glass, 26-27
Bohemia, engraved glass of, 286
Bohemian frontier, German glass from, 258-260
Bohemian frontier glass where made, 258-260
Bohemian glass, properties of, 11
Bohemian glass, imitated in Belgium, 242
Bohemian glass, use of term, 258-260
Bohemian glass, exported to East, 287-288
Bohemian glass beads, 292-293
Bohemian glass, pastes for false jewels, 293
Bones, glass from human, 291-292
Bonhomme, de, firm, 242, 287
Bonhomme, de, at Amsterdam, 294
Bonhomme, de, make flint glass, 315
Bracken, ashes used for making glass, 136
Briati, Venetian glass-worker, 212-213
Bristol, glass made at, 334-336
Bristol, enamelling on glass, 335
Bristol, wine-glasses made at, 324 _note_, 328 _note_
Bristol, opaque white glass, 334-335
Britain, Roman glass in, 61, 81, 85-87
Brocard, M. P., imitation of Saracenic glass, 152, 353
Broken glass, hawkers of, 82 _note_, 228
Buckholt Wood, glass furnace at, 304-305
Buckingham, Duke of, his glass-houses, 314, 318
Bushell, Dr., on glass in China, 347 _note_, 348 _note_
Byzantine art, term, how used, 89
Byzantine glass in St. Mark’s treasury, 99-102
Byzantine glass from Egypt, 105, 149
Byzantine glass from South-Saxon cemetery, 107
Byzantine glass in illuminated MSS., 102-103
Byzantine glass medallions, 94
Byzantine influence in mediæval Germany, 114
Byzantine mosaic workers, 96
Byzantine stained glass windows, 96-97
_Calcedonio_ of Venetians, 206
_Calcedonio_ used in two senses, 206 _note_
_Calcedonio_, preparation of, 218-219
Cameos and intaglios of late Greek glass, 47-48
Canosa, glass from tombs at, 45-46, 68
Carré, Jean, 303-304
Carving of glass unknown in later Middle Ages, 116
Catalonia, glass made in, 247-249
Catalonia, green enamels on glass, 247
Catalonia, relation of enamels to Saracenic, 248
Cemetery glass, 90-95
Cemetery glass, where found, 91
Cemetery glass, how made, 92-93
Cemetery glass, enamelling on, 93-94
Cemetery glass, Jewish symbols, 94
Cemetery glass, stipple process, 93
Chalices, early, of glass, 94-95, 97-98
Chalices, early forms and materials, 97-98
Champlevé enamel in Britain, 86
Chandeliers of Venetian glass, 211-212
Changes of colour in glass, 17
Chardin, Sir John, on Persian glass, 341-342
Charles VI. of France, interest in glass-workers, 137, 230
Charnock on Chiddingfold glass, 302
Chastleton, glass at, 321-322, 331
Chevron beads, how made, 188
Chevron beads, structure described, 188
Chevron beads, still made at Venice, 189
Chevron beads, found at Treviso, 189
Chevron beads, where found, 190-191
Chiddingfold, early glass manufacture, 139, 301-302
China, relations with Roman empire, 347
China, glass in, 347-354
China, glass authorities, 347 _note_
China, glass, Jesuits make glass, 348-349
Chinese glass, 347-354
Chinese glass, date-marks on, 349
Chinese glass, the Von Brandt collection, 349
Chinese glass, at South Kensington, 349-350
Chinese glass, technical triumphs, 350
Chinese glass, original methods, 350-351
Chinese glass, native stones imitated, 351
Chinese glass, snuff-bottles, 351-352
Chinese glass, snuff-bottles, varieties of technique, 352
Chinese glass, composition, 353
Chinese glass, made in Shantung, 353
Chinese glass, where made, 353
Chinese glass, snuff-bottles, analyses of, 353 _note_
Chinese glass, relation to contemporary French glass, 354
Chinese motives on Saracenic glass, 155
Chinese porcelain, enamelling on, 170
Christian subjects on engraved Roman glass, 75, 94
Church, Professor, analyses of glass, 335, 353 _note_
‘Claw’ handles on Roman glass, 62, 83
Cluny Museum, Saracenic glass, 166
Coal, use of, for glass furnace, 309-310
Coal, involves ‘closed pots,’ 310
Cobalt in Venetian glass, 218
Cobalt blue of mediæval window-glass, 133
_Cogoli_, white pebbles, 215, 317
Coin-like discs of glass in Egypt, 146-147
Colbert and plate-glass, 210, 235
Colchester, Roman glass from, 86
Colours of primitive Egyptian glass, 26-29
Colours of Roman glass, 52-53
Comarmond collection in British Museum, 81
Composition of glass, 8-9, 12-13
Composition, normal type, 9
_Compositiones ad Tingenda_, quoted, 120-121
Constantinople, influence of, 95-96
Contemporary glass, 356-360
_Conterie_, a class of Venetian beads, 183
_Coppa Nuziale_, 194-195
Copper, importance of, in colouring of ancient glass, 26, 35 _note_
Copper, the red suboxide in Egyptian glass, 27-28
Copper, the red suboxide in Roman glass, 52-53
Coptic glass from Egypt, 105
Coptic churches, lamps from, 106
Coptos, enamelled glass cup from, 163
Corundum or emery used in cutting glass, 74 _note_
Cosmati mosaics, 140
Crackle or frosted glass of Venice, 203
Crimea, primitive glass from, 37
_Cristallo_ of Venice, 200
_Cristallo_, how decorated, 201-202
_Cristallo_, in pictures of Venetians, 202-203
_Cristallo_, glasses broken at feasts, 203
_Cristallo_, replaces _verre de fougère_, 220-221
_Cristallo_, spread over Western Europe, 220-222
_Cristallo_, in Low Countries, 241
_Cristallo_, in Germany, 256-258
Cros, Henri, his _pâte de verre_, 359-360
Crotchet Friars, glass made at, 308
Cuthbert on glass-workers brought from Mainz, 113
‘Cylinder-process’ described by Theophilus, 128-129
‘Cylinder-process’, used for mirror-glass, 209, 210 _note_
‘Cylinder-process’, used by Lorrainers, 303
Cyprus, primitive glass from, 36, 37-38
Cyprus, enamelled glass from, 47
Czihak, Von, _Schlesische Gläser_, 259 _note_
_Damas, verre de_, 136
_Damas, façon de_, 181
Dante on glass mirrors, 138
Decay of glass, 15-17
Decay of glass, apparent capricious action, 15-16
Decay of glass, chemical process involved, 16
Decay of glass, follows internal structure, 16
Decay of glass, iridescence, 16-17
Decay of glass, fissuring or crackle, 17
Denderah, primitive glass of Roman times from, 32
Destruction of timber, outcry against, 309
Diamond-scratched Venetian glass, 209
Diamond ‘scratching’ on glass, 276, 277
Diamond ‘scratching’ in Holland, 295
_Diatretum_ work, how made, 64 _note_
_Diatretum_ carving, 71-73
Dispersion of light by glass, 320, 332
Dossie, _Handmaid to the Arts_ quoted, 333 _note_, 335 _note_, 353 _note_
Dou, Gerard, engraver on glass, 296
‘Doubled glass’ from tombs at Canosa, 46
‘Doubled glass’, German, 274-276
Dresden _Hof-kellerei_ glasses, 269
Drinking-glasses, English, 322-332
Drinking-glasses, stem or shank, 314, 323, 326-327
Drinking-glasses, form of stem, 315
Drinking-glasses, development of form, 322-323, 325
Drinking-glasses, how made, 323-324
Drinking-glasses, division of English, 324-325
Drinking-glasses, high quality of metal, 325
Drinking-glasses, the foot, 325-326
Drinking-glasses, the bowl, 327-330
Drinking-glasses, engraving on, 328-330
Drinking-glasses, inscriptions on, 329-330
Drinking-glasses, the square plinth foot, 332
Dudley, Bub, and pit-coal, 309
Dutch glass, 294-298
Dutch glass, diamond-scratched, 295-297
Dutch glass, engravings on plaques, 296
Dutch glass, engraved ‘flutes,’ 296
Dutch glass, _stip_ engraving, 297-298
Dutch glass, how done, 298
Dutch glass, prototype of English wine-glass, 298
Dutch influence on English arts, 321
Dutch school, glass in pictures of, 244, 254, 255
Edkins, glass enameller of Bristol, 335
_Églomisé, verre_, Gothic representative, 140, 142-143
_Églomisé, verre_, late Venetian, 208
_Églomisé, verre_, German type, 273-274
Egypt, coin-like discs of glass only found in, 146-147
Egypt, modern, conical lamps, 342
Egypt, modern glass found in, 342-343
Egyptian primitive glass, 19-33
Egyptian primitive glass, earliest examples, 19
Egyptian primitive glass, how made, 22-23, 24-25
Egyptian primitive glass, possible foreign origin, 23-24
Egyptian primitive glass, of XVIIIth Dynasty, 23-24
Egyptian primitive glass, source of materials, 25
Egyptian primitive glass, comparative rarity of, 26
Egyptian primitive glass, colours of, 26-29
Egyptian primitive glass, inlay, how applied, 31-32
Egyptian primitive glass, of Ptolemaic times, 32
Egyptian primitive glass, of Roman times, 32
Egyptian primitive glass, ‘fused mosaic,’ 33
Egyptian blue of ancients, 27, 56
Ehrenfeld, modern glass made at, 356
Enamelled glass from Greek tombs in Cyprus, 47
Enamelled glass of French, 237-238
Enamelled glass of Catalonia, 247-248
Enamelled glass of Germany, 264-273
Enamelling on glass, 65
Enamelling on glass, origin of art, 170
Enamelling on metal in Britain, 86
Enamels on Saracenic glass, 151-153
Enamels on Venetian glass, practical difficulties, 197-198
Enamels on Venetian glass, compared to Saracenic, 198
Enamels on Venetian glass, thinly painted enamels, 198-199
English glass, 139-140, 299-336
English glass, heavy taxes on, 10 _note_, 334
English glass, mediæval, 139-140
English glass, late development, 299
English glass, momentary pre-eminence, 299
English glass, Elizabethan period, 300-302, 308
English glass, the wine-glass of the collector, 300
English glass, Elizabethan period, what glass made, 302
English glass, the Lorrainers, 303-305
English glass, Venetian glass-makers, 307-308
English glass, early examples, 308-309
English glass, use of coal, 309-310
English glass, patents, 311-314
English glass, flint glass, origin of, 314-319
English glass, rarity of early specimens, 321-322
English glass, drinking-glasses, 322-331
English glass, change towards end of eighteenth century, 332
English glass, facetted glass, 332-333
Engraving on glass, division of technique, 276-277
Ennion, his name found on Syrian glass, 87
Escurial, glazing of windows, 234 _note_
Etching on glass by acid, 277, 281-282
Evelyn, John, on English glass, 314, 331
Facetted English glass, 332-333
Facetting, how made, 332
Facetting, when first in fashion, 332
Fatimi caliphs, their engraved rock crystal, 145, 146
Fatimi caliphs, glass coin-like discs, 146-147
Favrile glass, 357, 359
Fern ashes, used for making glass, 136
_Fiala_, word, how used by Dante, 176 _note_
‘Fiat’ or Jacobite glasses, 330-331
Fichtelgebirge glasses, 267-268
Fillon, Benjamin, on glass in Western France, 84-85
‘Flashing’ or ‘spinning’ to form a disc of glass, 14
Flemish school, glass in pictures of, 244
Flints, early use in English glass, 317
Flint-glass, _à l’Anglaise_, 242
Flint-glass, beauty of English, 299-300
Flint-glass requires ‘closed pots,’ 310
Flint-glass, when first made, 314-319
Flint-glass, composition, 319
Flint-glass, optical qualities, 320
Flint-glass, materials used, 334
_Flügel-gläser_, 257
‘Flutes,’ Dutch, diamond-scratched, 296
‘Forest glass,’ see ‘_Verre de Fougère_.’
Fostat or Old Cairo, fragments of glass from, 173
Frankish glass from the Meuse valley, 107-108
Frankish princes in Syrian coast towns, 176-180
Franko-Saxon glass, 107-108
French glass of Renaissance, 220-239
French glass, advance of _cristallo_, 220-223
French glass, Altarists, 223-224
French glass, rarity of, 225
French glass, literature, 225
French glass, hawkers of glass, street cries, 228
French glass, claims to nobility, 230-231
French glass, local glass-works, 232-234, 236, 238
French glass, plate-glass, 235
French glass, inscriptions on, 237-238
French glass, enamelled glass, 237-238
French glass, opaque white glass, 239
French mediæval glass vessels, 134-135
_Friolaro_, meaning of term, 176 _note_
Frit-ware of early Egyptians, 21
Frontinus, his name found on Gaulish glass, 88
Frosted or crackle glass of Venice, 203
Gallé, Émile, his glass, 358-359
Garzoni on Venetian glass, 215-216
Gaul, Roman glass in, 81-85
_Gentilshommes de verre_, 230-231
German mediæval glass, 137
German mediæval glass mirrors, 138
German glass, 251-293
German glass, mediæval forms, 251-252
German glass, green glass, 252-255
German glass, Venetian influence, 255-258
German glass, rivalry to Venice, 258
German glass, from Bohemian frontier, 258-260
German glass, glass furnaces, 261, 263
German glass, how made, 263
German glass, enamelling on, 264-273
German glass, origin of enamelling, 264-265
German glass, poorness of enamels, 265
German glass, names of various glasses, 266
German glass, South German glass, 270-273
German glass, painted and gilt glass, 273-275
German glass, cut and engraved glass, 276-288
German glass, cut and engraved, introduced from Italy, 279
German glass, machinery for engraving, 281, 283-284
German glass, engraving, division of work, 281
German glass, ruby glass, 289-294
German glass, opaque white glass, 291
German glass beads, 292-293
Gilding on Saracenic glass, 153
Gilding on Venetian glass, 195
Gilding on German glass, 274-275
Gilt glass of cemeteries, 90-95
Glaze, relation to glass, 2
Glaze, early use of, in Egypt, 20-21
Glaze, applied to stone or fritty base by Egyptians, 21
‘Goblet of Charlemagne,’ 161
‘Goblet of the Eight Priests,’ 161
Gold, ruby glass coloured by, 289-290
_Gottefle_, nature of vessel so called, 135
Graal, Holy, 98 _note_
Gréau collection of glass, 51, 53
Greek glass, of Mycenæan age, 33-36
Greek glass, bowls moulded and turned, 45, 47
Greek glass, intaglios and cameos, 47-48
Greeks, glass little appreciated by, 33-34, 44
Greeks, vague use of name for glass, 45
‘Green Glass’ of Rhine and Netherlands, 252-255
‘Green Glass’, colour specially added, 252
Greene, John, orders glass from Venice, 314-315
Greenwood, engraver by _stip_ process, 297
_Grisaille_ painting of Schaper, 272-273
_Grüne Gewölbe_, Saracenic enamelled glass in, 162
_Hæmatinon_ of Pliny, 53, 79, 94
Hall, near Innsbruck, glass made at, 271
Hampton Court, window and mirror glass, 321
Hardness of glass, 11
Hartshorne, Mr. Albert, _Old English Glasses_, 324 _note_
Hartshorne, quoted, 111
Hartshorne, on English drinking-glasses, 324
Hebrew literature, doubtful mention of glass in, 41
Hebron, glass made near, 42, 342
Hebron, glass-works in Middle Ages, 148
‘Hedwig glasses,’ so-called, 114-117
Hedwig, patron saint of Silesia, 115 _note_
Helbig quoted on term _Kyanos_, 34-35
Henry VIII., his collection of glass, 306
Heraclius or Eraclius, 121
Heraclius on gilt glass, 92
Heraclius, his treatise on Arts of Romans, 121-122
Heraclius, on carving of glass, 121-122
Heraclius, Pseudo, 121
Heraclius, his glass furnace, 127
Heraclius, on glass of lead, 130-131
Hirshvogel family, 256, 271
Holy Graal, 98 _note_
Hope collection, enamelled beaker from, in the British Museum, 163-164, 179-180
Houghton, John, on English glass, 317-319
Howell, James, _Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ_, 312
Hu, the glass made by, at Pekin, 349
_Humpen_, cylindrical beaker, 266-268
Hydrofluoric acid, used for etching glass in seventeenth century, 281-282
Hydrofluoric acid, glass etched by, 287-288
Indian glass, 343-347
Indian glass, no early glass known, 343
Indian glass, engraved glass of Mogul times, 343
Indian glass, enamelled glass of Mogul times, 343
Indian glass, contemporary native glass, 344-346
Indian glass, how made, 345
Indian glass, the furnaces, 345
Indian glass, its artistic qualities, 346
Industrial period in history of glass, 18
Inlay of glass, Roman, 53-55
Inlay of glass, Gothic, 140-142
Inlay of glass, on church furniture, 140-141
Inscriptions on Syrian glass, 58
Inscriptions on Roman glass, 58, 87-88
Inscriptions on French glass, 237-238
Inscriptions on English glass, 329-330
Intaglios and cameos of late Greek glass, 47-48
Ireland, glass made in, 336
Iridescence of glass, 16-17
Iron oxides, colours derived from, 17
Jacobite glasses, 329-330
Japan, practically no native glass, 354
Japan, glass from Dolmen tombs, 354 _note_
Japan, glass in Shoso In treasury, 354-355
Japan, Sassanian influence, 355
Japan, glass from prehistoric tombs, 355
Jasper-glass of Venetians, 207
Jeremiah on the manufacture of soap, 41
Jewish glass-makers in Syria, 118, 148
Jewish pedlars of glass, 82 _note_
Jewish symbols on cemetery glass, 94
Junius Bassus, the _opus sectile_ in his Basilica, 54-55
Kent, North, Roman glass from, 86
Kent, North, glass from Jutish tombs, 110, 113
Khosrau, Nassiri, travels of, 149 _note_
Khosroes, bowl of, 104-105
Kinsky family and the Bohemian glass industry, 286
Kouyunjik, glass from, in British Museum, 39-40
_Krautstrunk_, a German form of beaker, 255, 262
Kreybich, wandering glass-hawker, 286
_Kugler_, a class of engravers on glass, 284
Kundmann’s glass from bone and tobacco ash, 292
Kunckel, Johann, 288-291
_Kur-fürsten Humpen_, 267
_Kyanos_, probably blue glass, 34-35
Lace glass, 40, 46, 205-206
Lace glass, how far made in Germany, 269-270
Lamp, master form in Saracenic glass, 156-157
Lamp, conical cup, the typical form in glass, 157
Lamp, Saracenic, wick, how fixed, 157, 342
Lamps of St. Sophia, 97
Lamps in Venetian pictures, how suspended, 156
Lannoy, Cornelius de, 307
_Lapis lazuli_, imitation of, in glass, 22, 32, 35, 56
_Lapis lazuli_, enamel on Saracenic glass, 152
_Latticinio_ or _Lattimo_, 203-205
_Latticinio_ imitating porcelain, 204-205
_Latticinio_, festooned, 205
_Latticinio_, recipe for preparation, 217
_Lattimo_, see _Latticinio_.
_Lattisuol_, see _Latticinio_.
Lead, amount in flint-glass, 319
Lead-glass made by Jews, 118, 131
Lead-glass, Neri and Merret on, 316-317
Lead-glass, _see also_ Flint-glass.
Lehmann, Caspar, engraver on glass, 279-280
Lennard collection, glass from, 332
_Liao_, Chinese name for glass, 353 _note_
Liége, glass made at, 242, 315
Lily of the Valley, on enamelled glasses, 267
Lime, importance in composition of glass, 8-9, 227-228
Literature of glass, essentially French, 226
_Liu-li_, old Chinese name for glass, 347
Lorraine, charter granted to glass-workers, 230
Lorraine, importance in history of glass, 231-232
Lorraine, _tables quarrées_ of, 234 _note_, 303
Lorrainers in England, 303-305
Lorrainers driven from Sussex, 304
Lorrainers, their wanderings, 304-305
Lotus decoration on Saracenic glass, 154
‘Luck of Eden Hall,’ 161-162
‘Lustre’ and _lustro_, 212 _note_
Lyons, Roman glass from, 82
Magic, early mediæval works on, 119
Magnesia in Pliny means manganese, 77 _note_
Magnesia in Saracenic glass, 151
Malleable glass, 78-79
Manganese in glass, changes of colour, 17
Manganese purple in primitive glass, 28-29
Manganese in Roman glass, 77
Manganese and _Magnese_, 218 _note_
Mansell, Sir Robert, 311
Mansell, Sir Robert, his patents, 305, 311-314
Mansourah, glass made at, 149, 167
_Mappæ clavicula_, notices on glass, 121
_Mariegole_, rules of Venetian glass-workers’ guilds, 181-182
Martial on Roman glass, 73-74, 82 _note_
Mathesius quoted, 253, 262, 264
Mathesius, _Sermons for Miners_, 262-263
_Matricole_, rules of glass-workers’ guilds in Venice, 181-182
Mazer-like forms in glass, 252
Mediæval treatises on alchemy, etc., 119-124
Mediæval glass, rarity of, 133-134
Memlook Sultans, art of, 147-148
Merret, _Art of Glass_ quoted, 7
Merret, on properties of glass, 7
Merret, on glass of lead, 316-317
Mesomedes on glass-houses, 80
Milanesi, treatises on preparation of glass, 217
_Milch-glas_, 291
Millefiori glass of Romans, 49-52
Millefiori glass, Madrepore patterns, 49
Millefiori glass, relation to Egyptian ‘fused-mosaics,’ 49
Millefiori glass, how built up, 50-51
Millefiori glass, peacock patterns, 51
Millefiori glass, agate patterns, 51
Millefiori glass of Venetians, 207
Mirror of Catherine of Arragon, 306
Mirrors of glass from Roman tombs, 55-56
Mirror of glass in Middle Ages, 138-139
Mirror Venetian, 209-211
Mirrors, Venetian, imitated by Germans, 209
Mirrors, Venetian, frames of, 210
Mirrors, Venetian, of ‘steel,’ 210 _note_
Mirrors, Venetian, exported to East, 211
Mirrors of plate-glass, 210, 235-236
Monza, glass in treasury, 99
Mosaic-workers from Constantinople, 96
Moret collection in British Museum, 85
Moselle district—Roman glass, 83
Mosque lamps or lanterns, 155-156
Mosque lamps suspended from spheres, 156
Mosque lamps from Sultan Hassan mosque, 156, 168
Mosque lamps from Cairo, 167-169
Mosque lamps inscription on, 167-169
Mosque lamps abnormal types, 169-170
Mosque lamps made in Venice for the Turks, 171-172
Moulded glass of Phœnicians and Romans, 56-58
Munich _Schatzkammer_, glass in, 280
Murano, furnaces stopped in late summer, 182
Murano, the guilds, how organised, 182-183
Murano, description of, 201, 216
Mycenæan age, glass of, 33-37
Mycenæan glass from bee-hive tombs, 35-36
Nailsea glass-works, 336
Natron as a source for soda in glass, 13, 26, 77
Natron Lakes of Lower Egypt, 106
Neri, Antonio, his _Arte Vetraria_, 219
Neri, various translations of, 289
Neri, upon glass of lead, 316-317
Nesbitt, Mr., catalogues by, 51 _note_
Netherlands, glass of, 240-244
Netherlandish glass, mediæval forms, 252
Netherlandish school, glass in pictures of, 243, 244, 251-252
Nevers, glass made at, 232-234
New Testament, allusion to glass in, 42 _note_
Nineveh, glass from, 39-40
Nobility, claims to, by glass-workers, 230-231
Norman _versus_ Lorraine glass, 234 _note_
Normandy, glass made in, 234-235
Normandy, glass-workers from, in England, 304-305
_Nuppen_ or ‘Prunts,’ 253
Nuremberg mirrors, 138-139
Nuremberg, Venetian glass imitated, 256
Nuremberg, enamelled glass of, 271-272
_Ochsenkopf humpen_, 268
Onyx glass, Greco-Roman, 68-70
_Opus sectile_ as wall-covering, 54-55
Oriental influence, in Europe, 89-90
Oriental influence, on Germanic jewellery, 107-108
Oriental influence, on Mediæval German glass, 114-117
Orleans, glass made at, 238-239
Orschall’s _Sol sine veste_, 290
‘Painted’ enamels on Venetian glass, 208
‘Painted’ enamels on German glass, 273-274
Palissy on cheapness of glass, 228
_Paraison_, term explained, 14
Papyrus of Leiden, 120
_Pass-glas_, narrow cylinder, 269
Passini, on the Treasury of St. Mark’s, 100 _note_
_Pâte de Verre_ of Henri Cros, 359-360
Patents and licences to ‘adventurers,’ 311-314
Paternoster Kugel, 292
Paternosters, a kind of bead, 184
Paul the Silentiary quoted, 97
Pax, Gothic, how painted at back, 141-142
Percivall, Thomas, 309, 310, 311
_Perle a rosette_, _see_ Chevron beads.
Persian glass, 172, 338-342
Persian glass, rarity before seventeenth century, 172
Persian glass, Venetian origin, 338-341
Persian glass, earlier examples, 339
Persian glass, enamelling on, 339
Persian glass, shapes of blown glass, 339-340
Persian glass, engraved glass, 340-341
Persian glass, Chardin quoted, 341-342
Petrie, Dr. Flinders, on manufacture of glass in Egypt, 22-23, 24-25
Phœnician coast towns, early moulded glass, 57-58
Phœnician glass-makers, Pliny on, 76-78
Physical properties of glass, 10-12
Pictures of old masters, glass in, 202-203, 243, 244, 251-252, 254-255
‘Pillar moulding’ on early Roman glass, 63
‘Pillar moulding’ on Byzantine glass from Egypt, 106
Plate-glass, 210
Plate-glass, French invention, 235
Pliny on preparation of glass, 76-79
Pliny on _magnes lapis_ and _magnesia_, 77
Podgoriza bowl, 95
_Pointillé_ engraving on glass, 297-298
Poitou, Roman glass found in, 84-85
_Po-li_, Chinese name for glass, 347
Pompeii, glass from, 60, 69-70
_Pontil_ or _punto_, 14
Porcelain, relation to glass in history, 3
Porcelain, imitated by _lattimo_ glass, 205-206, 239, 249, 290, 291, 334
Portland or Barberini vase, 68-69
Potash used for inland glass, 11, 136
Potash, source of, 13
Potash, glass maintained in Germany, 257-258
Pottery, relation to glass in history, 2-3
Pretender, the, his head on wine-glasses, 330
Primitive glass, 18-42
Primitive glass, restricted use of, 20
Primitive glass, Greek and Egyptian names, 20
Primitive glass, of Egyptians imitates native stones, 21-22
Primitive glass, late survivals, 37-38
Primitive period in history of glass, 18
_Procello_ or ‘spring-tool,’ 15
‘Prunted’ beakers, of Anglo-Saxons and other Germanic tribes, 110-112
‘Prunted’ beakers, how made, 111
‘Prunted’ beakers, found in Illyria, 111
‘Prunts,’ on German glasses, 253
‘Prunts,’ restriction of term, 253 _note_
‘Prunts,’ practical use of, 253 _note_
Rabanus, Maurus, glass furnace in MS. of, 124-25
Ravenscroft, his flint-glass, 318
Red colours in Egyptian glass, 27-28
Red opaque glass confined in Egypt to inlays, 28
Reichenau, Byzantine glass on island of, 114
_Reichs-adler Humpen_, 267
René, King, patron of glass-makers, 135, 229
_Retabulum_ from Westminster Abbey, 141
_Reticelli, vetro a_, 205-206
Rhages or Rhé, fragments of glass from, 173
Rhodes, primitive glass from, 36, 37-38
Rhodes, glass from, 342
Riaño, Don Juan, on Spanish glass, 246, 247
Rib-twisted stem, 326
Rings (_Annuli_) of glass, 131
Rock-crystal, glazed by Egyptians, 20
Rock-crystal, carvings in, 70
Rock-crystal, Byzantine school of carving, 103-104, 118
Rock-crystal, carvings from Western Asia, 118
Rock-crystal, engraved by Saracens, 145-146
Rock-crystal, Italian engravers on, 279
_Roemer_, how built up, 254-255
_Roemer_, a form exceptional in England, 315
_Roemer_, in pictures of Dutch school, 244
_Roemer_-shaped goblets, 254-255
Roemer Vischer, his three daughters, 295
Roman glass, 48-88
Roman glass, the earliest Hellenistic in character, 48
Roman glass, in the main not dependent on Greece, 48-49
Roman glass, Millefiori glass, 49-52
Roman glass, colours of, 52
Roman glass, glass in floor-mosaics, 53 _note_
Roman glass, wall decoration, 53-54
Roman glass, _Opus sectile_ in glass, 54-55
Roman glass, window-glass, how made, 55
Roman glass, mirrors, 55-56
Roman glass, coloured pastes, _Lapis lazuli_, 56
Roman glass, moulded glass, 56-58
Roman glass, moulded ‘hollow-ware,’ 57-58
Roman glass, from Britain, blown into moulds, 58
Roman glass, blown into silver casing, 58 _note_
Roman glass, spread of manufacture, 60-61
Roman glass, in Britain, 61, 81, 86-87
Roman glass, cinerary urns, 61
Roman glass, early spread in Gaul and Spain, 61, 78
Roman glass, relation of shapes to pottery, 63
Roman glass, stringings and threadings, 64
Roman glass, enamelled glass, 65-67, 102
Roman glass, engraved and sculptured, 67-75
Roman glass, engraved and sculptured, from Canosa, 68
Roman glass, engraved and sculptured, onyx or cameo carved, 68-70
Roman glass, engraved and sculptured, ‘_Diatretum_’ carved, 71-73
Roman glass, engraved and sculptured, late carvings in low relief, 74-75
Roman glass, engraved and sculptured, engraved by wheel, 74-75
Roman glass, method of preparation, 76
Roman glass, Pliny quoted, 76-79
Roman glass, first made near Cumæ, 78
Roman glass, glass-houses, 80
Roman glass, in Gaul, 81-85
Roman glass, abundance in Eastern and North-eastern Gaul, 81
Roman glass, in West German Museums, 83-84
Roman glass, chronological classification, 83-84
Roman glass, in Western Gaul, 84-85
Roman glass, inscriptions on, 87-88
_Roquetta_, term explained, 13
Rothschild, Lord, carved cup of Roman glass, 73
Ruby-red, perhaps known to Ancients, 52
Ruby-red, in mediæval window-glass, 133
Ruby glass of Kunckel, 289-291
Ruby glass examples of, 291
Rudolph II. patronises carving of rock-crystal, 278-279
_Rui_ or _rulli_, small window-panes, 182
_Ruimer_ or _roemer_ of Dutch, 295
Sabellico on Venetian glass, 201
_Sacro catino_ of Genoa, 98-99
Saladin brings new influence to Egypt, 171
Salviati, 214, 227 _note_
Samarkand, glass-makers transported to, 168
Samarkand, description of glass of, 339
Sandrart on engraving of glass, 279-282
‘Sapphirus’ altar of St. David’s, 98 _note_
_Sapphirus_, term used for blue glass paste, 131
_Sapphirus_, see _Lapis lazuli_.
St. Anastasia, Rome, glass bowl at, 98
St. Gobain, plate-glass of, 210, 235
St. Ildefonso, royal glass-works, 250
St. Mark’s treasury, enamelled Roman glass, 66-67
St. Mark’s treasury, _Diatretum_ glass, 71-73
St. Mark’s treasury, description of glass in, 99-102
St. Sophia, lamps and windows, 96-97
Saracenic art, revolution in twelfth century, 170-171
Saracenic art, influence of Mongol invasion, 171
Saracenic carved glass, earlier than enamelled, 144-146
Saracenic enamelled glass, where made, 149
Saracenic enamelled glass, nature of ‘metal,’ 150-151
Saracenic enamelled glass, composition of, 151
Saracenic enamelled glass, magnesia in, 151
Saracenic enamelled glass, nature of enamels, 151
Saracenic enamelled glass, use of _Lapis lazuli_, 152
Saracenic enamelled glass, use of gold in decoration, 153
Saracenic enamelled glass, motives of decoration, 154-155
Saracenic enamelled glass, ‘canting badges’ of Sultans, 155
Saracenic enamelled glass, Chinese motives in decoration, 155
Saracenic enamelled glass, signatures of artist, 155
Saracenic enamelled glass, forms of lamps, 157
Saracenic enamelled glass, wick of lamps, how fixed, 157
Saracenic enamelled glass, beakers of lamp-like form, 158-160
Saracenic enamelled glass, construction of base of beakers, 159
Saracenic enamelled glass, famous beakers, 161-164
Saracenic enamelled glass, vessels filled with holy earth, 164-165
Saracenic enamelled glass, long-necked bottles, 165-166
Saracenic enamelled glass, bowls and dishes, 166-167
Saracenic enamelled glass, mosque lamps, 167-169
Saracenic enamelled glass, decline of, 168-169
Saracenic enamelled glass, origin of art, 170
Saracenic enamelled glass, found in China, 348
Sargon, glass engraved with name of, 40
Saroldo family at Nevers, 233
Sassanian glass, 104-105
Sassanian influence in Japan, 355
Scarpaggiato making glass in Bavaria, 271
Schaper, Johann, painter on glass, 272-273
_Schmelz_ glass of the Venetians, 207-208, 218-219
Schmoranz, G., work on Saracenic glass, 150 _note_
Schuermans, Judge, 222, 241
Schurman, Anna Maria van, 295
Schwanhart family, engravers on glass, 280-283, 288
Schwinger, Hermann, engraver on glass, 283
Shantung, glass made in, 353
Sherbet-jugs of opaque white glass, 342-343
Sidon, Pre-Roman glass, 57, 59, 78
Sidon, inscription on glass from, 87
Sidon, Venetians at, 176
Signatures of makers on Roman and Phœnician glass, 87-88
Signatures, rarely found on glass, 88
Signatures on Saracenic enamelled glass, 155
Silesia, engraved glass of, 285
Silica, amount of, in glass, 9-10
Singer, Mr. J. Webb, his collection of glasses, 324 _note_, 328
‘Singing glasses,’ 331
Slade collection, catalogue of, 51 _note_
Slavonic tombs, no glass in, 114 _note_
Snuff-bottles, Chinese, 351-352
Soap-making, its relation to glass, 41-42
‘Soap of glass’ (manganese), 77
Soda, the normal alkali of glass, 9-10
Soda, or maritime group of glass, 10-11
Soda, source of, 12-13
Soda, in Venetian glass, 214
South-Saxon Cemetery, Byzantine glass from, 107
Southwark, early glass-houses, 302, 312
Spanish glass, 245-250
Spanish glass, green glass of south, 245-246
Spanish glass, literature, 246 _note_
Spanish glass, Catalonia, 247-249
Spanish glass, Altarists and Muranists, 249-250
Spanish glass, decline in eighteenth century, 250
Spanish Netherlands, glass of, 240-244
‘Spear-butt’ shaped lamps, 97
‘Spear-butt’, in use in Italy, 158
_Spechter_, cylindrical beaker, 266
Specific gravity of glass, 12
Spessart forest, glass from, 266
Spheres in connection with suspended mosque lamps, 156-172
‘Spinning’ or ‘flashing’ to form a disc of glass, 15
Splashed decoration on Egyptian cosmetic pots, 31
Splashed decoration on Roman glass, 64
Splashed decoration on Venetian glass, 208
Splashed decoration on French Renaissance glass, 238
Splashed decoration on glass made at Bristol, 335-336
Stained glass windows, of St. Sophia, 96
Stained glass, French, composition of, 131
Stained glass how coloured, 132-133
Steinschönau, glass industry, 286, 293
_Stimpler_, bungling workman, 281, 285
_Stip_ engraving of Dutch, 297-298
Strabo on Roman glass, 60-61, 80
Strabo on glass of Alexandria and Syria, 80
Sulphur in glass, changes of colour, 17
_Suppialume_ process, 187
Susa, glass from, 41 _note_
Susa, Sassanian or Byzantine glass from, 104
Sussex glass-work, 139-140, 301-302
Switzerland, glass painters of, 263-264
Synesius, treatise on alchemy, 120
Syria, glass early made in, 38-39, 44-45
Syria, importance in history of glass, 122-123
Syria, glass made during Frankish occupation in coast towns, 180-181
Syrian glass of Middle Ages, 118, 148-149
Syrian glass-workers in Gaul and Rome, 82-83
Syrian tombs, glass from, 59-60
Syrian treatises on alchemy, etc., 122-124
Syrian manufacture of glass vessels, 123-124
Syrian glass-furnace described, 124
Tassie, James, his glass paste, 336
Tell-el-Amarna, glass from, 22, 23-25
Theophilus, his _Schedula Diversarum Artium_, 126-130
Theophilus on gilt glass, 92-93
Theophilus, his glass furnace, 127-128
Theophilus, materials for glass-making, 128
Theophilus, blowing of glass, 128-129
Theophilus, the ‘cylinder process,’ 128-129
Theophilus on enamelling of glass vessels, 130
Theophrastus on the word _Kyanos_, 35
Tiffany, Messrs., favrile glass, 357, 359
Timur or Tamerlane, his conquest, 168
Timur transplants glass-workers, 338
Tobacco ash, glass from, 292
Treviso, discovery of chevron beads, 189
_Trionfi di Tavola_, 213
Turkish element in later Saracenic art, 147-148
Tyre, glass-works in Middle Ages, 148-149
Tiryns, glass inlay in alabaster slabs, 34
Ultramarine, source of blue in Saracenic enamels, 152
_Unguentaria_ or _Phialæ_ of primitive glass, 22, 23, 29-30, 33, 36-37
_Unguentaria_, wavy decoration of, 23
_Unguentaria_, inscriptions on Egyptian, 30-31
_Unguentaria_ from tombs in Southern Italy and Greek islands, 36-37
_Unguentaria_ from Crimean tombs, 37
Uranium, opal glass from, 206 _note_
_Urinalia_ of glass, 134, 139 _note_
Varpelev, enamelled glass from tombs at, 66
Veneer of glass used by Romans, 52-54
Venetian glass, 174-219
Venetian glass, made for Turks, 171-172
Venetian glass, sources of information, 176 _note_
Venetian glass, early mention of, 177
Venetian glass, German pedlars, 177
Venetian glass, manufacture forbidden in Venice, 177
Venetian glass, early manufacture of beads, window-glass, and spectacles, 178
Venetian glass, Germans export glass, 178-184
Venetian glass, competition with crystal-cutters, 178-179, 184
Venetian glass, early commerce with Syrian ports, 179
Venetian glass, early enamelled glass, 179
Venetian glass, little Oriental influence in fifteenth century, 181
Venetian glass, Muranese and Venetian guilds, 183
Venetian glass, manufacture of beads, 185-187
Venetian glass, exported to England and Low Countries, 192
Venetian enamelled glass of fifteenth century, 192-199
Venetian enamelled glass imitates enamels on copper, 193
Venetian enamelled glass, _semé_ gilding, 195
Venetian glass, _Cristallo_, 200-202
Venetian glass, _Cristallo_, varieties of, 203-209
Venetian glass, _Cristallo_ plaque engraved in _intaglio_, 209
Venetian glass, _Cristallo_ mirrors, 209-211
Venetian glass, _Cristallo_ chandeliers, 211-212
Venetian glass, _Cristallo_, attempts to check decline, 212-213
Venetian glass, _Cristallo_, cut and engraved, 213
Venetian glass, _Cristallo_, revival of nineteenth century, 213-214
Venetian glass, _Cristallo_, special qualities of, 214
Venetian glass, _Cristallo_, literature of, 214-219
Venetian glass, _Cristallo_, preparation, 215, 217-219
Venetian glass, _Cristallo_, early practical treatises, 217
Venetian glass in Western Europe, 220-223
Venetian glass, _Cristallo_, early importation to Germany, 256
Venetian glass, _Cristallo_, importation into England, 314-315
Venetian glass-workers, restrictions on emigration, 222-223
Venetian glass-workers, in Netherlands, 240-241
Venetian glass-workers, in England, 307-308
Venetian school, suspended lamps in pictures of, 156
Venetian school, glass in pictures of, 202-203
_Verre_ or _voirre_, use of the French word, 135-136
_Verre de fougère_, 221, 234
_Verre de fougère_, in mediæval times, 113-114
_Verre de fougère_, in France, 134-135, 136
_Verrerie_, term explained, 1
_Verroterie_, term explained, 1, 19
Verzelini, Jacopo, 307-308
_Vetro di trina_ from Nineveh, 40
_Vetro di trina_ from Canosa, 46, 50 _note_
_Vetro di trina_ of Murano, 205-206
Vienna, Saracenic enamelled glass in cathedral, 164-165
Vienna, _Schatzkammer_, glass from, in Museum, 280
Waddesdon collection, glass in, 163, 193, 206, 252 _note_
Walloon Church at Southampton, 304-305
Warmbrunn in Silesia, glass engraving, 285-286
Waterford, glass-houses at, 336
Webb of Stourbridge, his cameo glass, 358
Weights for coins in glass, 146-147
Westminster _retabulum_, inlay of glass, 141
_Willkomm humpen_, 266
Windows of French churches, composition and colours, 132-133
Wine, when first bottled, 322
Wine-bottles, early English, 322
Wine-bottles, stamps on, 322
Wine-glasses, _see_ Drinking-glasses.
Winter, Friedrich, Silesian glass engraver, 285
Wolf, engraver by _stip_ process, 297-298
‘Würzburg’ flask in British Museum, enamels on, 153
Yard, a form of drinking-glass, 331
Yellow from antimony in primitive glass, 29
Yellow, source of, in mediæval window-glass, 133
Zozimus, treatise on alchemy, 120
_Zunft-becher_ or guild glasses, 270
_Zwischen gläser_, 274-275
Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press
Footnote 1:
It would be quite beside the mark to search for a chemical formula to express such a combination of silica, soda, and lime. I have little doubt that one of the causes of this remarkable uniformity of composition is to be looked for in the very fact that such a mixture is _not a definite silicate_, and is therefore the less likely to assume a stony or crystalline structure on cooling.
Footnote 2:
The alumina here is probably not to be regarded as a base, but rather as taking the place of the silica. Hence the exceptionally low percentage of the latter.
Footnote 3:
It had its origin in great measure in the arbitrary regulations laid down by the fiscal authorities at the beginning of the last century. This side of the subject is well treated in the article on glass in the original edition of the _Penny Cyclopædia_.
Footnote 4:
In the Museum at Kew may be seen specimens of Spanish barilla made from the _Halogeton sativa_, as well as large crude cakes of roquetta from Aden and Bagdad prepared from the _Suæda fruticosa_ and the _Salsola kali_ respectively.
Footnote 5:
‘The Processes of Decay in Glass’ is the subject of an elaborate paper by Mr. James Fowler, to be found in the forty-sixth volume of _Archæologia_.
Footnote 6:
Good instances of both these changes may be observed in the windows and chandeliers of the Galerie des Glaces at Versailles.
Footnote 7:
I know at least of no example of a vessel or bead of glass of an earlier date. That the molten material of the glazes—known from the earliest period—may even in very early times have been rolled into slabs and subsequently cut up into pieces for inlay-work, would seem to be proved by a fragment of a wooden box, bearing the name of a king of the First Dynasty, found by M. Amélineau on the site of Abydos. This box (it is now in the Ashmolean Museum, where it was pointed out to me by Mr. Bell) is decorated with small triangular plaques of what is apparently a blue translucent glass, with an uneven but undecomposed surface.
Footnote 8:
It should be borne in mind that colourless rock crystal was at all times ‘taboo’ to the Egyptians, and this fact may partly account for the absence of clear white glass in Egypt.
Footnote 9:
In most cases, I think, the comparatively hard arragonite, the _carbonate_, and not the _sulphate_ of lime that we know by that name.
Footnote 10:
There is, however, some reason to believe not only that the salt lakes of the Delta were exploited at a very early date, but that the natron, an impure carbonate of soda, may well have been exported thence by an old caravan route, perhaps even in pre-dynastic times.
Footnote 11:
Professor Buckman, in a paper in the _Archæological Journal_ so long ago as 1851 gives some valuable analyses of ancient glass, the main result of which is to show the absence of lead and the general use of copper as a source of blue, in pre-Roman times at least. In many of these older analyses, as in those made by Sir Humphry Davy, there always remains an element of doubt, not so much as to the accuracy of the chemist’s work, but as to the _provenance_ of the specimen that he is examining. Professor Buckman dwells upon the light that properly conducted analyses would throw upon the origin and classification of the glass of the ancients. He does not, unfortunately, distinguish the nature of the alkali, whether soda or potash, in his own analyses. Little work of this kind has been accomplished in the fifty years that have since elapsed.
Footnote 12:
Antimony has been found in the glaze of Assyrian bricks, as well as in the yellow enamel of mediæval Saracenic glass. The Egyptian name was _mestem_, whence the word _stibium_ (antimony), but other minerals such as galena, hæmatite, and pyrolusite (oxide of manganese), have also been found in their kohl-pots; at one time indeed, during the early empire, a copper-green was in fashion for painting the angles of the eyes. I may mention that in the twisted rods—of a comparatively late date, however—that fitted into these kohl-pots, we have some of the earliest examples of a transparent white glass.
Footnote 13:
This, however, is not quite certain, for the _prænomen_ of Thothmes III.—_Men-cheper-Ra_—was assumed, I am informed, by one of the priest kings of the Twenty-second Dynasty. Indeed, the technique in this case would point rather to a late than an early period.
Footnote 14:
I had proposed to include this example and the two little vases previously described among my coloured illustrations. I have, however, not been able to obtain the requisite permission from the keeper of the Egyptian Department.
Footnote 15:
This is the expression used in the official catalogue of the Museum, from which I borrow this description.
Footnote 16:
Glass-workers’ moulds have been found at Mycenæ, and it has been claimed for this glass that it was _made_ as well as melted on the spot. But that, I think, is unlikely.
Footnote 17:
All this bears out what I have said above upon the relation of the earliest glass to the metallurgy of copper, and the probability that the earliest glass was a blue glass (p. 26).
Footnote 18:
It is a remarkable fact that somewhat similar beads, of clear, colourless, facetted glass, evidently of great age, have lately been brought from West Africa. (See a paper by Mr. C. H. Read in _Man_, May 1905.)
Footnote 19:
Such a comparison may indeed be made in the case of the bulk of the ‘primitive’ glass of which we treat in this chapter, and may help to accentuate the difference between it and the blown glass of later days.
Footnote 20:
Some fragments of a conical vessel of clear thin glass, evidently formed by the blowing-tube, have lately been found by M. de Morgan at Susa. They are said to bear a cuneiform inscription of the time of the Achæmenidæ. These fragments are now in the Louvre, but considerable doubt exists as to the nature of the markings. The glass certainly resembles suspiciously that used by the Arabs for their small hanging lamps.
Footnote 21:
See Chapter XXI. for some further account of this glass.
Footnote 22:
On the other hand, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians and in the Epistle of James, there are references to mirrors that may have been of glass. Again, in Revelation we find ‘a sea of glass like unto crystal’ (iv. 6), and what is more important, glass in other passages (xxi. 18 and 21) is referred to as ‘pure’ and ‘transparent’ (the words in the original being ὓαλος, καθαρός, and διαφανής). In view of the question, discussed below, of the date when clear glass came into general use, this contrast between the Gospels and the, on the whole, later books is of some interest.
Footnote 23:
This arrangement in spiral coils is very characteristic of the glass of this period, though it is generally only to be seen on close examination. We have noticed it in the case of the ‘lace-glass’ from Canosa. It may give us some clue as to the method of manufacture.
Footnote 24:
This collection, which contains many fine examples of ancient glass, has been bought _en bloc_ by Mr. Pierpont Morgan, and is likely to follow the still more famous Charvet collection (so carefully described in M. Froehner’s great work), and to find its way to America.
Footnote 25:
The basis of this collection was formed by Mr. Nesbitt many years ago; it was presented to the Museum, in 1887, by his brother-in-law, the late Sir A. W. Franks. Mr. Nesbitt was the compiler of the catalogues both of the Slade collection (privately printed, 1871) and of the glass at South Kensington (1878)—magnificently illustrated works, but now in a measure out of date.
Footnote 26:
The evidence, however, on this point is very conflicting.
Footnote 27:
The pale rosy tint seen in a few rare specimens of classical glass, as in some pieces lately brought from Egypt, I should rather attribute to a skilful use of manganese.
Footnote 28:
The presence of tin in this glass which I have already mentioned in speaking of its Egyptian prototype (p. 27), has been confirmed by analyses made at Sèvres by M. Salvétat. I do not know whether the researches of this chemist into the composition of the glass of the ancients have ever been published.
Footnote 29:
In the Roman floor mosaics the tesseræ are almost invariably of stone, but occasionally fragments of glass are found, as in the famous ‘Mosaic of the Philosophers’ in the museum at Cologne. Here the ground is built up of a smeltz-like greenish glass.
Footnote 30:
We may compare this use of glass with the _kyanos_ studs of the Mycenæan period, or again with the blue glass inlaid between the volutes of the capitals in the temple of Minerva Polias at Athens, described long ago by Hamilton.
Footnote 31:
In the glass coffin from the Temple collection in the British Museum we have an example of the use of such glass on a comparatively large scale.
Footnote 32:
Mr. Kennard has a plaque of clear white glass, some six inches in length, with the bust of a faun in high relief. This plaque is pierced on either side, as if for fixing upon some object of furniture.
Footnote 33:
We may regard the little ovoid vase in the British Museum, made by blowing a thin vesicle of deep blue glass into a casing of silver, pierced by oval apertures, as an example of moulded glass where the mould has not been removed. If the silver casing were stripped off, we should have a good imitation of ‘prunted’ glass; not that this is to be taken as a model of the way in which these prunts were made (see below, p. 110).
Footnote 34:
How far the so-called _diatretum_ work is based upon such _appliqué_ or added portions of glass is a much disputed point. Mr. Nesbitt appears to have regarded all such work as so formed (_Catalogue, Slade Collection_, pp. xiv.-xv.), and the imitations now made at Murano are certainly built up in this way; not so, however, some of the genuine ancient pieces, I think. (See below, p. 71.)
Footnote 35:
The Egyptians, too, as we have seen, sometimes decorated their glass with similar splashes, but we never find that these are distorted.
Footnote 36:
There are many allusions to the painting of glass, in some cases merely by varnishes, in the early mediæval treatises on glass (see Chap. VII.). Some of these recipes, as we shall see, may have been handed down from classical times.
Footnote 37:
The contents have been described by the late Canonico Passini, in a magnificent work published by Ongania of Venice, in which nearly every piece of importance is reproduced in colour or by photography.
Footnote 38:
There is among the Roman glass in the museum at Cologne a shallow bowl about a foot in diameter, painted on the back, as in the later _verre églomisé_, with a female head. The colours—black, red, and white—are but slightly burnt in, and therefore much decomposed.
Footnote 39:
This part is stated to be a distinct piece cemented on to the bottom of the vessel. So at least says Mr. Apsley Pellatt in his _Curiosities of Glass-making_, writing, I think, before the vase was broken.
In the same book will be found a careful account of the process of ‘casing’ as now practised. It was probably by some such plan, in the case of the Portland vase, that the _paraison_ of blue glass was blown into the previously prepared vessel of opaque white.
Footnote 40:
I shall return to this sculptured work when treating of Byzantine glass in the next chapter.
Footnote 41:
By the courtesy of Lord Rothschild I have had an opportunity of examining this wonderful cup. It is undoubtedly carved from one piece of glass. The spirited execution would seem to point to a date hardly much later than the beginning of the third century. The internal depressions were made perhaps with the object of lighting up the external figures. The glass by transmitted light is of a fiery red, tending to purple, but the figure of Lycurgus is exceptionally of a fine amethystine tint. I think that in both cases the colour is probably due to a skilful use of manganese.
Footnote 42:
The abrading material employed along with the wheel was probably in most cases corundum or emery (the _adamas_ of the ancients) in a powdered form; not the diamond, which was excessively rare, nor the emerald, as is sometimes stated. This last stone is not only much rarer than corundum, but it is also not so hard.
Footnote 43:
Compare what is said below on p. 82 of Greek-speaking Syrian artisans.
Footnote 44:
For some account of what these writers tell us about glass, see below, Chap. VII.
Footnote 45:
Theophilus, however, writing a century earlier than the pseudo-Heraclius, appears to speak of the marver as a slab of stone (see below, Chap. VII.).
Footnote 46:
The sand of this river as a material for the manufacture of glass is already mentioned by Theophrastus, a pupil of Aristotle.
Footnote 47:
_Glebas nitri._ This is doubtless the natron (impure carbonate of soda) exported from the Egyptian natron lakes, which have been worked from a very early period—a substance that must not be confused with our nitre (nitrate of potash); as I have said, the glass of the ancients is essentially a soda glass. The natron was probably first exported for the use of the soap-makers.
Footnote 48:
This again must not be confused with the white earth, which we now know under that name, a substance unknown to the ancients.
Footnote 49:
By this is probably meant three parts in twelve or ten, _i.e._ 25 or 30 per cent. of the whole.
Footnote 50:
Great care must be exercised in translating the names of the precious stones and marbles mentioned by Greek and Roman writers. These names are used in the vaguest way, which hardly ever corresponds to the modern meaning.
Footnote 51:
Among others, from the early history of the Christian Church in these parts.
Footnote 52:
At Rome, too, there is some reason to think that the working of glass—the minor departments of that art, at least—was long in the hands of Syrian or other Semitic immigrants. Martial’s itinerant hawker from the Transtevere, who bartered his sulphur matches for broken glass, we may perhaps think of as a Jew (Book 1., _Epigram._ 42).
Footnote 53:
See p. 88.
Footnote 54:
Compare with these the bottle from Cologne in the British Museum containing a hardened mass of some yellow substance, and closed by a decayed cork partly covered by a corroded bronze capsule (_Slade Catalogue_, No. 275).
Footnote 55:
Both these forms are found in Anglo-Saxon and Frankish graves. It will be remembered that in France there was no sudden break in the Roman culture on the appearance of the Germanic invaders, as was the case in England.
Footnote 56:
Philostratus describes the process by which the ‘barbarians of the ocean’ spread colours upon heated bronze so as to form a hard enduring decoration. He was of the household of Julia Domna, and M. Froehner suggests that he may have heard of these enamels from one of the officers of the army of Septimius Severus.
Footnote 57:
The famous enamelled bowl, however, found in a Roman tomb of the time of Hadrian, at Bartlow, Essex, was accompanied by a cinerary vase and other examples of glass. See _Archæologia_, vol. xxvi.
Footnote 58:
The chapter dealing with these marks, together with that on the geographical distribution, forms the most valuable part of M. Froehner’s already quoted work on ancient glass.
Footnote 59:
So when some of our leading archæologists saw at first in the discoveries of Schliemann at Mycenæ and Troy the work of wandering tribes of the fifth and sixth centuries, they were unconsciously arguing in favour of this often renewed Oriental influence.
Footnote 60:
The glass from the catacombs has long attracted notice, with the result that many more or less clever forgeries, dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, have to be reckoned with. These _fondi d’oro_ are most completely illustrated by Garucci in the third volume of the Jesuit father’s great work, the _Storia dell’ Arte Christiana_ (1876), as well as in an earlier work (1858 and 1864), especially devoted to Christian glass. The most scholarly treatment of the subject is to be found in the little work of Dr. Hermann Vopel, _Die Alt-Christlichen Goldgläser_ (1899). For an excellent summary of what is known on the subject, see also the catalogue of the early Christian Antiquities in the British Museum, by Mr. O. M. Dalton, and the same writer’s paper in the _Archæological Journal_ (1901).
Footnote 61:
‘... quo facto desuper ipsas Armavi vitrum docto flatu tenuatum Ignis; sed post quam pariter sensere calorem Se vitrum fialis tenuatum junxit honeste.’
These lines, which describe the critical process by which the superficial layer of glass was applied, are unfortunately somewhat obscure. If I have translated them aright, the process did not differ much from that now adopted at Murano. Heraclius is here probably copying an older recipe.
Footnote 62:
There is a good example, a bearded man, in the Glass Room at the British Museum. Some clever imitations were made in the eighteenth century.
Footnote 63:
As examples of this, note the gladiator glass and the _Anatoli Gaudens_ portrait from the Tyskiewitz collection. This last example, of quite exceptional merit, has been recently acquired by the British Museum.
Footnote 64:
I am inclined to connect the cemetery glass as a whole with the Judaising Christians of the old narrow school, who had long been settled in Rome near to the Porta Capena and in the Transteverine quarters, not far, that is to say, from the principal cemeteries.
Footnote 65:
Formerly in the Basilewski collection, now, I think, in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg. This cup, which is also of interest for the inscriptions on it in a local dialect of debased Latin, was found near the site of Doclea, to the north of the Lake of Scutari.
Footnote 66:
In the Theodosian code, however, we find, among the craftsmen who are freed from personal taxes, _Vitrearii, vasa vitrea conflantes_.
Footnote 67:
A disc of this description, pierced to receive glass cups, is apparently an earlier form than the well-known corona, the _polycandela_, so long in use in Christian churches. The hanging disc, like so many things Roman and Byzantine, would seem to have survived among the Saracens; something like it may still be found in old Arab houses in Cairo. Elsewhere Paul, speaking of the single lights in St. Sophia, describes them as silver vessels, _like a balance-pan_—in the centre of each rests a cup of ‘well burning oil.’ This passage, I think, throws some light on certain ‘balance-pan’ dishes of rock crystal and glass, preserved in St. Mark’s treasury at Venice (see below, p. 101).
Footnote 68:
Its relation to the Queen of Sheba we may dismiss. The other two uses that have been assigned to this bowl may be reconciled, if we accept one of the earliest forms of the tradition of the Holy Graal. (I follow here the account given by the late Mr. Thomas Arnold in an article by him in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_.) According to this tradition, Joseph of Arimathea, at the time of the Crucifixion, proceeded first to the upper room where the Last Supper had been celebrated and found there the shallow bowl that had held the Paschal Lamb. Taking this vessel with him, and returning to the scene of the Crucifixion, he received in it drops of blood from the side of our Lord. The double service of the bowl is the essence of this tradition. Mr. Arnold, _à propos_ of the traditionary connection of the Holy Graal with Glastonbury, quotes from Malmesbury a statement that in his day an altar called ‘sapphirus,’ which had been brought from Palestine to St. Davids, had been re-discovered. This may well have been a slab of glass similar to that still preserved at Reichenau. I have been unable to find any further reference to this ‘sapphirus’ altar.
Footnote 69:
_Il Tesoro di San Marco illustrato da Antonio Passini, Canonico della Marciana._ Published by Ferd. Ongania, Venice, 1886. As in both the text and the plates of this work the glass is mixed up with objects of rock crystal and other materials, I give a reference to the plates on which vessels of glass are reproduced.
Footnote 70:
This dish should probably rather find a place among the hanging lamps of the next section. There are others of these so-called chalices and patens of which the original use is very problematical.
Footnote 71:
This vase has been classed by Von Czihak with the so-called Hedwig glasses (see below, p. 115); the resemblance, however, to the German glasses is small.
Footnote 72:
Note in this connection the inscription on the mounting of the lamp of carved glass (IV. 1 in our list) in St. Mark’s treasury, referring to a bishop of Iberia, the modern Georgia. Not until the reign of Justinian was the Roman empire extended to the east coast of the Euxine—to Lazica and Colchis.
Footnote 73:
The contents of these graves have been described in a paper read before the Society of Antiquaries by Mr. C. H. Read (_Archæologia_, vol. lv.).
Footnote 74:
I use the term Saxon here to include also the Angles and Jutes.
Footnote 75:
In this widely spread class of jewellery, both true enamel and glass are conspicuous by their general absence.
Footnote 76:
I have seen, in the collection of Mr. Kennard, the lower part of a vase of thickish clear green glass, from an Anglo-Saxon tomb. On this the tails of the well-formed prunts _sweep downwards diagonally_; on the head of each is a rosette Such a form one may perhaps connect with the ‘_hroden ealo woege_,’ the ‘twisted ale-cups’ of Beowulf’s poem (cf. Hartshorne, p. 24).
Footnote 77:
Note in this tapestry, in more than one feast scene, the swaggering action with which the guests raise the drinking-horns, either to drink from the larger end or to let the liquid pass into the mouth from the pointed extremity.
Footnote 78:
In the sacristy of the church at Mittelzell, where I recently had an opportunity of examining it. This is an irregular oblong slab, about twenty inches in length, weighing about thirty pounds. One surface is nearly even, as if the molten glass had been poured out upon a table.
Footnote 79:
The Slavonic tribes before their conversion do not appear to have had any knowledge of glass; it is not found in any of their tombs to the east of the Elbe.
Footnote 80:
Apart from a few examples of enamelled glass of Saracenic origin preserved in church treasuries; these probably came in somewhat later.
Footnote 81:
There are, beside these, five other glasses that may be connected with this saint, but these are of a different character. Hedwig was the wife of a Silesian prince who lived in the early part of the thirteenth century. On the occasion of a misunderstanding with her husband, arising from the lady’s refusal to drink anything but water at her meals, the difficulty was surmounted by a miracle. St. Hedwig was canonised in 1257, and was soon recognised as the _landes patronin_ both of Silesia and Poland.
Footnote 82:
For example, on Gallic and British coins derived from Greek types, or again on some English porcelain where an Oriental design has been unintelligently copied.
Footnote 83:
_Les Origines de l’Alchimie_, 1885; _La Chimie des Anciens et du Moyen Age_, 1889; _La Chimie au Moyen Age_, 1893.
Footnote 84:
This I shall refer to later on as the pseudo-Heraclius; it contains several sections treating on the manufacture of glass, and forms a valuable commentary on the decidedly earlier treatise of Theophilus.
Footnote 85:
Compare with this account the furnace now used in Northern India described in Chapter XXI.
Footnote 86:
At South Kensington, in the Indian section, may be seen some native distilling apparatus of glass, which follows very closely in the line of these old Syrian drawings.
Footnote 87:
For the relation of Theophilus to his predecessor, Bishop Meinhart of Paderborn, and to the Greek influence still prevailing in Germany, see the Introduction by Albert Ilg to his edition of this treatise in the _Quellenschriften für Kunstgeschichte_, vol. vii.; Vienna, 1874.
Footnote 88:
Much of this latter sort, however, was to be greedily absorbed in Germany at a later date.
Footnote 89:
Are we to take this acquaintance with the Agia Sophia in a material as well as a symbolical sense? Does Theophilus in this passage claim to have visited Constantinople?
Footnote 90:
Not long after this a German poet writes to this effect—
‘_Gott hat erschaffen manchen Mann Der Glas aus Asche machen kann Und dass kan schöpfen wie er will._’
Footnote 91:
This is, of course, the ‘marver,’ not yet of iron as in the thirteenth-century writer (cf. p. 76).
Footnote 92:
From the expression used, ‘_quam fistulam_,’ etc., it would seem that the identical hollow tube was used again and not replaced by a simple rod—the _pontil_; but perhaps this is merely a slip on the part of Theophilus.
Footnote 93:
The literal statement is that ‘the painted gold figures are covered with the clear fusible glass of which we have already spoken’; over this again the coloured designs are painted—a curious and elaborate process. We must, however, remember that although Theophilus may have seen specimens of Byzantine enamelled glass, he can have had little opportunity of learning how they were made.
Footnote 94:
There _annuli_ probably included also bracelets or bangles of glass. We may perhaps compare them to those still worn by Arab women. Margaret, Countess of Flanders, had in 1252 a casket full of glass rings.
Footnote 95:
Yet in France much of the old glass was sacrificed at the Revolution in order _to extract the gold_. See Appert, _Les Vitraux Anciens_, for the composition and colour of mediæval window-glass.
Footnote 96:
Early in the eleventh century, a saintly German bishop, Bernard of Hildesheim, is said to have made for himself a chalice of glass, and a few years later a bishop of Auxerre founded three prebendal seats, one for a painter, one for a goldsmith, and a third for a glass-worker (_vitrier_—probably a maker of glass windows). We must not, then, be surprised at the acquaintance with the practical arts shown by the monk Rugerus (Theophilus).
Footnote 97:
M. Schuermans, however, brings forward passages to show that in early days the term was applied to a small flask carried about the person.
Footnote 98:
What little we have comes mostly from the Venetian archives. We hear already in the fourteenth century of German hawkers of glass, and of the skill of the Germans in making glass mirrors.
Footnote 99:
To hollow ware, that is to say. Stained glass for windows, of which examples still survive, was made in England in the fifteenth century, and probably even earlier.
Footnote 100:
Compare with these the four hundred and thirty-two _urinalia_ supplied to the Dauphin of the Viennois for a year’s consumption. Glass, it would appear from an epigram of Martial, was put to a similar use by the Romans.
Footnote 101:
The village of Kirdford is situated about four miles to the north of Petworth.
Footnote 102:
It stood for long against the wall of the South Ambulatory. As in this position the paintings appeared to be suffering from the damp, it has lately been removed to the Jerusalem Chamber.
Footnote 103:
A fifteenth-century plaque at South Kensington is possibly an exception. Here the gold leaf lies between two sheets of glass, the lower one of considerable thickness, but how these sheets are united I cannot say.
Footnote 104:
In shape they resemble the little bottles in which attar of roses is still sold in Oriental bazaars, and this resemblance may give a hint as to their original use.
Footnote 105:
Schefer, _Relation des voyages de Nassiri Khosrau_(1035-1042 A.D.), pp. 42 and 46. The information from Arab writers collected in the notes to this work must not be confused with what Khosrau himself says. There is, however, one important reference to our material in the text:—we are told that glass, transparent and pure as the emerald, was sold in Cairo by the weight. This was in Fatimi times. There may, perhaps, have been some confusion with the glass weights themselves, of which we have spoken above.
Footnote 106:
We may find, perhaps, what is the last reference to Alexandria in connection with glass in ‘the most precious vase, _Alexandrini generis_,’ that the Emperor Henry II. (_d._ 1024 A.D.) presented to the Abbot of Cluny. This was probably an example of sculptured glass, which may have come to Henry through his relationship with the Byzantine emperors.
Footnote 107:
Gustav Schmoranz, _Old Oriental Gilt and Enamelled Glass Vessels_, 1899. One hundred and forty glass lamps are accounted for, of which number exactly half are now in the Museum of Arab Art at Cairo. The remaining pieces—goblets, bottles, etc.—only amount to forty-four, but these are nearly all in European museums or private collections.
Footnote 108:
There was only one, for instance, in the Slade collection. There are now seven in the British Museum and nine at South Kensington, without counting the smaller specimens.
Footnote 109:
For the important bearing of this point, see my book on Porcelain in this series.
Footnote 110:
Note that the use of cobalt as an _overglaze_ enamel on Chinese _porcelain_ did not come in until the seventeenth century, and that this enamel at first gave more trouble than any other.
Footnote 111:
I use this term for the writing with tall perpendicular strokes, although much of it, I understand, should not strictly bear the name.
Footnote 112:
A good example may be seen in a large picture of the Circumcision by Marco Marziale in the National Gallery.
Footnote 113:
Glass lamp-cups of this form are still made in India; Mr. Forrest, ex-Director of Records at the India Office, has shown me a specimen brought from Gujerat. Glass lamps of a similar construction seem to have been in use in bedrooms in Germany in the fifteenth century; they may be seen in contemporary pictures.
Footnote 114:
The magnificent specimen of enamelled glass with geometrical decoration, which belonged to the late Baron Alphonse de Rothschild, figured in Schmoranz’s work as a lantern, is, of course, a stand for a candle. It resembles in every respect, except material, the well-known cylindrical candle-stands of inlaid bronze.
Footnote 115:
A good example of the first is reproduced by M. Gerspach (_L’Art de la Verrerie_, p. 100) from a manuscript of the famous story-teller Hariri. For an instance of the second, see the side subjects on the Würzburg flask in the British Museum.
Footnote 116:
The construction, indeed, closely resembles that of the Cairo cup-lamp described above.
Footnote 117:
The oldest of these ballads only dates back to the time of the Duke of Wharton, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The ‘wicked Duke,’ it is said, when in his cups would toss the ‘Luck’ into the air and catch it in his hand.
Footnote 118:
This is the goblet figured in Schmoranz, p. 29. It belonged at the time, he tells us, to an unknown collector, who gave £1600 for it at Christie’s in 1881.
Footnote 119:
Illustrated in _Archæologia_, vol. lviii., where it forms the starting-point of the paper by Mr. C. H. Read, that I have quoted from above.
Footnote 120:
In this respect differing from the other cup in this collection to which the same date and origin are ascribed. I refer to the Aldrevandini goblet, with the armorial shields, described in the next chapter. The glass of this cup is already quite of a Venetian type, approaching to a true _cristallo_.
Footnote 121:
He reigned during the temporary deposition of Malek Nasir.
Footnote 122:
This lamp also has, I think, passed into the Pierpont Morgan collection.
Footnote 123:
The badge of a sword is very frequent upon these later lamps, but it can hardly in all cases refer to the same sultan or emir.
Footnote 124:
The only other lamp, as far as I know, that has been obtained from Syria, is one from Damascus, presented to the British Museum by the late Sir A. W. Franks. This in no way differs from the ordinary type except in the enamelled decoration at the base of the handles. A lamp of quite normal description at South Kensington has also been attributed, but very doubtfully, to the same Syrian town.
Footnote 125:
The words on the document as I read them are ‘_parte schietti et parte à rediselli_.’ The ambassador at the same time sends an order for window-glass to be used in the new palace that Ali Pasha is building; and finally, for ‘_uno di quelli ferali [fenali?] over fano di salla grande_'—probably some kind of chandelier.
Footnote 126:
We should have looked rather for some trace of Oriental influence. Freeman (_Historical Geography_, p. 240) speaks of the marquisate as ‘a feudal state, whose rulers had in various ways a singular connection with the East. As Marquesses of Montferrat they claimed the crown of Jerusalem and had worn the crown of Thessalonica.’ Again, early in the fourteenth century the marquisate passed to a branch of the imperial house of Palæologus.
Footnote 127:
The _Consolato dell’ Arte_ was yearly elected on Christmas Day amid great festivities. In the statutes of the _Arte Vitrea_, drawn up or revised in 1495, we have apparently the earliest documentary evidence for these glass-works. These statutes are given in full in Bordoni’s _L’Arte Vetraria in Altare_, Savona, 1884.
Footnote 128:
The results are perhaps best summed up in the memoir contributed in 1872 by Cecchetti to the _Reale Instituto Veneto_. See also the _Monographia della Vetraria Veneziana_, the combined work of Zanetti, Cecchetti, and others, drawn up upon the occasion of the Viennese Exhibition of 1873. Vicenzo Zanetti, in his account of the _Museo Civico_ at Murano, gives a list of more than three hundred works (including manuscripts, drawings, and pamphlets) treating upon Venetian glass.
Footnote 129:
A possible exception has been found in a document of the year 1090, in which a certain citizen adds the word _fiolarius_ to his name. This word, which in the Venetian tongue generally takes the form _friolaro_, is of some importance to us. In Dante the word _fiala_ is used for a wine-bottle: ‘_il vin della sua fiala_,’ Par. x. 88.
Footnote 130:
As early as 1175 it is mentioned that the Venetians had certain privileges in the _Daciones de Vitro_ at Tyre.
Footnote 131:
Ayas, Tripoli, Tyre, and Acre remained under Frankish rule during the greater part of the thirteenth century. Acre, the last to fall, was taken by the Saracens in 1291.
Footnote 132:
My point is that in this beautiful cup the scheme of decoration is essentially French, while the technique of both glass and enamels points to a Saracenic place of origin.
Footnote 133:
They have been analysed by Cecchetti in the paper quoted above.
Footnote 134:
This word was the source of much embarrassment to Merret, the translator of Neri’s little manual on glass, of which I shall have more to say further on. Quite regardless of the context, he throughout his translation rendered the words ‘_canne di conterie_’—that is to say, the glass rods from which the beads were made—as ‘rails for counting houses’!
Footnote 135:
The term ‘bead’ was early transferred from the ‘bid’ or prayer to the small spherical bodies strung on a cord by which these prayers were counted, and before the end of the fourteenth century the word was already used in a secular sense also.
Footnote 136:
These _canne_ are described as ‘_de vero [vetro] commun, Christallini et colorade de diversi sorti_.’
Footnote 137:
Note in this connection the recent discovery of ‘chevron’ beads at Treviso, referred to below.
Footnote 138:
Something like the apparatus used for roasting coffee, it would seem. I do not attempt to give any explanation of the two rival processes—_a spiedo_ (on a broach or spit) and _a ferracia_. That attempted by Mr. Nesbitt (_South Kensington Glass_, p. civ.) is not satisfactory.
Footnote 139:
It is not, I think, generally known that beads were made in the east of London, early in the last century, by this process—by dropping off the glass upon a revolving spit or rod of iron (Hartshorne, p. 106).
Footnote 140:
According to Dr. Petrie’s interpretation (see above, Chapter II.). It is difficult to understand how the elaborate beads found in Etruscan and Greek tombs—those with satyr masks especially—were built up without the use of the blow-pipe.
Footnote 141:
Now preserved in the local museum at Treviso, where I lately had an opportunity of examining them. Nothing was found with them except a few small rods of coloured glass. It has been suggested that this was a contraband store, at some time destroyed by fire; but the fragments are in no case fused together. This parti-coloured glass, we may note, would be of little value for ‘cullet,’ and defective beads would therefore be thrown away.
Footnote 142:
A fine specimen has found its way into the collection of Egyptian antiquities in the British Museum.
Footnote 143:
The term ‘Aggri’ should, perhaps, be reserved for large beads, of which the colours extend right through the mass, but the term is not very definitely used in the African trade.
Footnote 144:
Some of this enamelled glass no doubt dates from the early years of the next century. On the other hand, some of the thin white glass of capricious forms described in the next chapter may have been made before the year 1500. Apart from the generally vague ground of shape and style of decoration, there is no means of fixing the date of Venetian glass, so that in the absence of costumed figures or of coats of arms we are often very much in the dark on this point.
Footnote 145:
I have seen, however, in a fourteenth-century manuscript, glasses with well developed stems carefully depicted.
Footnote 146:
It was on the strength of the armour borne by this figure that M. Labarte attributed this cup to the early part of the fifteenth century. I may note that this goblet, as well as the one of green glass mentioned below, was bought in Italy for a small sum by M. Debruge Duménil, one of the earliest systematic collectors of Venetian glass. The elaborate catalogue of his collection, made very shortly after his death in 1847, by his son-in-law Jules Labarte, is a valuable record of the Italian art of the Renaissance.
Footnote 147:
James Howell, _Epistolæ Ho-elianæ_.
Footnote 148:
This vessel appears to be sometimes filled, not with water, but with moist sand or earth.
Footnote 149:
In the Louvre, the nymph of Giorgione’s ‘Fête Champêtre’ holds a jug of glass of graceful form over the well to the left, and in Titian’s ‘Supper at Emmaus’ in the same gallery, the twisting lines that surround a decanter with tall neck and handles, suggest a decoration with _latticinio_.
Footnote 150:
The quotation is from the Appendix to Vicenzo Cervio’s _Il Trinciante_, Venice, 1593.
Footnote 151:
‘_Ma quando particolarmente se voglion’ far vetri bianchi di smalto vi s’aggiunge calcina di stagno e questo si chiama latticinio del quale si fanno opere diverse sopra i vasi di christallo_’ (Garzoni, _Piazza Universale_, 1585, p. 550).
Footnote 152:
But in the earlier writers this name is given rather to the imitations of agate—what was afterwards known as _schmelz_ (cf. p. 218).
Footnote 153:
A similar effect is obtained nowadays by means of a salt of uranium, but as is so often the case in the modern handling of old decorative systems, the opalescence is generally overdone.
Footnote 154:
Laborde, _Les Émaux au Louvre_, Part II. No. 498, and the same author’s _Les Ducs de Bourgogne_ (Archives of Lille).
Footnote 155:
In the museum at Murano is, or was, a similar plaque thus described by Zanetti, ‘_Una grossa piastra col busto incavato del Doge Andrea Gritti fra le initiali A. G._; _secolo XVI._’ (_Il Museo Civico-Vetrario di Murano_, 1881).
Footnote 156:
By the eighteenth century, however, they had adopted the German system. The President De Brosses, in one of the admirable letters that he wrote from Italy (1739), when describing the manufacture of mirrors at Murano, gives a vivid account of the cylinder process.
Footnote 157:
Not really steel, of course, but a kind of speculum metal containing about one part of tin to two of copper. Fioravanti, in his _Specchio di Scientia Universale_, tells us that this _acciaio_ was made of equal parts of brass and tin. He contrasts the German and Italian methods of preparation of glass mirrors, giving the preference to the former. Fioravanti then speaks of the interest taken in these mirrors—not by women only—and after balancing the pros and cons, he concludes that, on the whole—‘_gli specchi son’ mala cosa nelle case_.’
Footnote 158:
A word that must not be confused with the term _luse_ or _lustro_, applied by the Venetians to a mirror.
Footnote 159:
There is a magnificent chandelier of this class in the drawing-room of Mr. Beaumont’s house in Piccadilly. It dates probably from the early years of the eighteenth century.
Footnote 160:
‘_Notizia delle opere d’arte._’ I quote at second-hand, as I have not been able to find a copy of this work.
Footnote 161:
The learned Cardanus, physician, mathematician, and astrologer, has a section on glass both in his _De Subtilitate_ (1551) and in the somewhat later _De Varietate Rerum_. He is often quoted as an authority on the subject by contemporary and later writers, but in spite of many quaint and ingenious reflections I can find little of practical value in his remarks.
Footnote 162:
Not to be confounded, says the writer, with the stone known as Magnese, found ‘_nella Magna_’ (Allemania or Germany). ‘Quite other are the virtues of this stone [magnetic oxide of iron?] when placed under your pillow, ...’ but for the context I must refer the reader to the sixty-ninth section of the original work.
Footnote 163:
In the fourth section of the second treatise the author speaks of ‘_azurro della Magna del quale si tinge il vetro_.’ There is also a section at the end of the first book on the preparation of _azurro fine_ from _pietro d’azurro ultramarino_, but I do not think that this has anything to do with the colouring of glass, as it is associated with recipes for dyeing grey hair of a blonde colour and for preparing the _acqua virgine_ by which the face is rendered beautiful. It is difficult to understand what relation the _Acqua di Philoseophy_ (_sic_—there are several sections so headed at the end of the treatise) has with the preparation of glass. But all these old formulists are only too ready to run off at a tangent to discuss questions of alchemy.
Footnote 164:
In spite of what Milanesi says in his introduction, I strongly suspect this third treatise to be of a later date than the others; the whole tone of it seems to smack more of the _cinquecento_ than of the previous century. At the same time it is inferior to the two preceding treatises in practical knowledge—indeed it contains much nonsense.
Footnote 165:
See above, p. 174, for an account of L’Altare.
Footnote 166:
But much the same might be said of the potter’s art; in this case, however, the artistic history is far more continuous and inter-connected than in the case of glass.
Footnote 167:
It is not less interesting to hear, in a letter (dated 1572) from the governor of Poitou, of ‘_Fabian_ Salviate, _escuyer, gentilhomme de Myrane, païs de Venize, venuz lui et sa famille, en ce païs de Poictou pour praticquer l’art de la Verrerie_.’ Cf. p. 214. But this is perhaps an accidental coincidence.
Footnote 168:
This bed of sand extends eastward through the forest of Fontainebleau, and at the present day it is this sand of Fontainebleau that the glass-makers of Murano, when they can afford it, use in preference to all other sources of silica.
Footnote 169:
Truguet, _Les Cris de Paris_—no date, but soon after 1600. _Verre de pierre_ we may compare to our expression ‘flint’ or ‘pebble glass.’ It has been altered to _verre de bière_ by a recent French writer on glass, who quotes the cry!
Footnote 170:
It was a Ferro who, as far back as the fourteenth century, taught the glass-workers at L’Altare the Venetian methods of making glass. The glass industry of Provence has at the present day been almost monopolized by the French branch of this family.
Footnote 171:
In the west also, René, who we must remember was head of the house of Anjou, in consideration of the ‘_gentilesse et noblesse qui est l’ouvrage de verrerie, et que aussi c’est le bien du pays et de la chose publique_,’ granted permission for the foundation of glass-works among the forests of La Vendée, with rights of cutting wood ‘_au lieu le moins dommaigeable_’ (Gerspach, p. 196).
Footnote 172:
At this time—in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century—Lorraine was not yet an integral part of France. It formed part of the Holy Roman Empire, while its trade connections were rather with the Netherlands and with Italy. See below for the distinction between _Verres de France_ and _Verres de Lorraine_.
Footnote 173:
The Abbé Boutellier has made a special study of the Nivernais glass, but I have not had an opportunity of seeing his _Histoire des Gentilshommes verriers et de la Verrerie de Nevers_.
Footnote 174:
In distinction from the _Verre en tables quarrées_ made in Lorraine. I am unable to say whether the latter was at so early a date made by the cylinder process, but the square shape renders this very likely.
Footnote 175:
Among the documents relating to glass, collected by the Baron Davillier, was the report of the commission of inquiry appointed by Philip II. at the time (about 1560) when it was proposed to glaze the many thousand windows of the Escurial. Samples were sent from the glass-works of Spain, Burgundy, Lorraine, and Normandy. The Norman glass was declared to be the purest. (Quoted by Gerspach, p. 304.)
Footnote 176:
These _canons_, I think, correspond to the Italian _canni_, the glass rods from which beads were made. We hear of these _canons_ being supplied to the _Pâternostriers_, who take the place in France of the _Suppialumi_ of Venice.
Footnote 177:
It seems to me, however, very doubtful whether flint-glass was at this time necessarily _glass of lead_. I return to the point in the chapter on English glass.
Footnote 178:
I use the term Bohemian, here as elsewhere, for brevity’s sake. The more correct expression would be—the frontier lands of Germany and Bohemia. This will be made clear in the following chapter.
Footnote 179:
So in the important collection of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs at Brussels, especially strong in examples of ‘winged’ beakers, little attempt is made to separate the Venetian from the home-made specimens.
Footnote 180:
Attributed to the painter known as ‘The Master of the Death of the Virgin.’ In other works of this painter, who was working during the first thirty or forty years of the sixteenth century, we find examples of _cristallo_ of large size and advanced technique.
Footnote 181:
I do not know why this essentially Teutonic form is described in the official catalogue as a ‘Venetian green glass goblet.’
Footnote 182:
Riaño, _The Industrial Arts of Spain_. The little that we know, on the documentary side, of Spanish glass is derived for the most part from this work, one of the South Kensington handbooks. This may be supplemented by the information collected shortly before his death by the Baron Charles Davillier, which has filtered out through various channels; some of it may be found in M. Gerspach’s work on glass (pp. 100-105). M. Schuermans also has not forgotten Spain in his records of the wandering Italian glass-makers (_Bulletin_ xxix., pp. 133-147).
Footnote 183:
In 1324 the glass-makers were ordered to remove their furnaces from the inside of the town (Riaño, p. 234).
Footnote 184:
A surviving vessel of this shape, as well as some examples taken from pictures by Bouts and by the so-called Mostaert, is illustrated by Mr. Hartshorne (_Old English Glasses_, p. 64). Other similar bowls were to be found in the Thewald collection (dispersed at Cologne, October 1903): in Germany such vessels are known as _halbe Wurzelbecher_. The form was imitated also at Venice, as we may see in a bowl, in this case duplicated, in the Waddesdon Room in the British Museum.
Footnote 185:
Quite a number of little vessels of this dark green glass, ornamented with prunts and quillings of various forms, have been dredged up from the Scheldt at Antwerp, or found in the excavation of new docks. They may be studied in the museum now established in the Steen.
Footnote 186:
The term prunt should perhaps be restricted to those cases where the ‘blob’ is sufficiently large and hot to melt away the subjacent glass. When this is not the case, unless we adopt the German word _Warze_ or wart, the term ‘stud’ applies better. If again the ‘blob’ of hot glass is merely dropped on the surface it may be termed a ‘tear.’
Footnote 187:
Every art, he says, must adapt itself to the country where it is practised; and so we Germans have set all kinds of knobs and rings on our glasses, so that they may be somewhat stronger and more lasting, and be more easily held in the hands of fuddled and clumsy folk (‘_von vollen und ungeschicklichen Leuten_’). This quotation is from one of the Lutheran pastor’s ‘sermons’ on glass (see below, p. 262). Mathesius lived in what has been called ‘the classical age of German thirst,’ and was ever ready to gird at the failings of his contemporaries in this respect.
Footnote 188:
The seventeenth-century _roemer_ has been revived in Germany of late, and at Ehrenfeld, near Cologne, this form, as well as other old models, is skilfully if somewhat mechanically copied in both bottle-green and bluish-green glass.
Footnote 189:
This later arrangement is well seen in a still-life piece in the Jones collection, signed ‘J. W. Preyer, 1854.’ Compare the carefully painted _roemer_ in this picture—the solid foot wound round with a thin stringing—with the seventeenth-century glass in the picture by Jan van de Velde referred to below.
Footnote 190:
Already in the fifteenth century the _vitra Veneciana_ are distinguished from the _Vitrum silvestrum sive montanum_, otherwise _wald-glas_.
Footnote 191:
For this district we have in the excellent work of E. von Czihak—_Schlesische Gläser_, Breslau, 1891—a better source of information than is available for any other of the glass-making centres of Germany or Bohemia.
Footnote 192:
Published by Froben at Bâle in 1556; the dedication, however, is dated 1551.
Footnote 193:
So Agricola states in the very last paragraph of his book. As this passage seems to have been sometimes misinterpreted, I will quote it in full from the original Latin edition. He mentions the various shapes that glass may be made to assume, and continues:—
‘_Qualia opera multa praeclara et admiranda cum quondam biennio agerem Venetiis contemplatus sum; in primis verò anniversariis diebus festis ascensionis domenicae cùm venalia essent apportata Murano; ubi vitrariae officinae omnium celeberrimae sunt: quas vidi cum aliâs, tum maxime cum certis de causis Andream Naugerium in aedibus, quas ibi habebat, uno cum Francisco Asulano convenerim._’
From this passage it would appear that there was a great sale of Muranese glass in Venice on the feast of the Ascension (cf. above, p. 216). Is this Naugerius, at whose house at Murano Agricola visited, to be identified with the famous poet and orator Andrea Navagero, from whose travels in Spain I have quoted on page 249?
Footnote 194:
_Sarepta oder Bergpostil_, Nürnberg, 1562.
Footnote 195:
In a contemporary vocabulary _ritzle_ is interpreted as ‘_aurum quo tingitur vitrum rubro colore_.’ In a passage on Venetian glass in his early work, _De Naturâ Fossilium_ (1546), Agricola speaks of the use of gold to colour glass of the ruddy colour of the carbuncle.
Footnote 196:
I quote this passage, as it is much more to the point as regards German glass than what is to be found in Agricola, who gives us rather his theories as to the materials used by the Venetians to make their _cristallo_.
Footnote 197:
A separate muffle-stove for this purpose was, it would thus appear, not yet available.
Footnote 198:
This part of the decoration we may indeed regard as a survival of the Venetian influence that was dominant in the middle of the sixteenth century. Of this I have already spoken.
Footnote 199:
This flower, the _Mai-glöcklein_, is frequently seen on German enamelled glass, and is the more conspicuous as it is almost the only flower realistically treated. I may note that M. Schuermans would appear to regard the presence of these _tiges de muguet_, executed in enamel, as essentially a sign of Low Country origin; they are, however, frequently accompanied by inscriptions in German.
Footnote 200:
Notice to the heraldic right of the birds’ heads a shield bearing a cross and the inscription _Potestat zu Rom_.
Footnote 201:
On a small _humpen_, or rather _kanne_, of this class in the British Museum, dated 1611, we find only three secular electors—those of Saxony, the Palatinate, and Brandenburg; the place of the fourth (Bohemia) is occupied by the imperial eagle.
Footnote 202:
Herr von Czihak mentions that he has seen in the museum of Freiberg, in Saxony, a covered _humpen, painted in oil-colours_, protected apparently with some kind of lacquer. The glass is dark green, and the Gothic character both of the metal cover and of the painting points to a date not later than 1500. The subject, according to a quaint inscription, has relation to ‘_Eneaspius der Babst_’ (the Pope Pius II., 1458-1464), and to the ‘_Roemischer Kaiser Friderich der dritt_’ (_Schlesische Gläser_, p. 101).
Footnote 203:
What Mathesius states is, ‘The white [_i.e._ colourless] glasses have now become common over which white threads of white colour are carried; these glasses are made in Silesia.’ Herr von Czihak (p. 96) says that he has seen many such glasses of somewhat rude make in that province. It will be remembered that some of the _vetro di trina_ made at Murano is also only superficially decorated.
Footnote 204:
On the other hand, the technique of the cemetery glasses differs essentially, as in these the two plates of glass are fused together, on the edges at least (p. 92).
Footnote 205:
We often find similar defects developed on glass lenses. To ensure achromatism and accuracy of definition these lenses are built up of two layers, one of crown, the other of flint glass, cemented together by a varnish.
Footnote 206:
This art was carried to the highest perfection in Holland by a group of cultured amateurs in the seventeenth century (see p. 295).
Footnote 207:
We hear, it is true, of water-wheels for grinding glass at Schwäbisch Grund, in Bavaria, in the second half of the sixteenth century. In these mills large beads (perhaps we may think of the chevron beads from Murano in this connection) were ground for exportation to the Indies by way of Antwerp (Von Czihak, p. 125). I may note that there is no reference to the cutting of glass in either Agricola or Mathesius.
Footnote 208:
It is interesting to compare with this work the carving—identical in technique—on reliquaries of rock crystal of Carlovingian date. Of these a remarkable example may be seen in the Mediæval Room in the British Museum.
Footnote 209:
The Schatzkammer at Munich is rich in examples of carved rock crystal of this period, but I can find few examples of carved glass in it. In the Imperial Museum in Vienna may be seen a superb series carved in both materials—the finest of these come from the Schatzkammer.
Footnote 210:
Lehmann died in 1622, and the elder George Schwanhart in 1667.
Footnote 211:
Compare with this the complaints, made at this time or a little later, of the artistic and social decadence of the glass-engravers in Bohemia and Silesia (p. 285).
Footnote 212:
On the early use of hydrofluoric acid I shall have something to say a little further on.
Footnote 213:
This is rendered in the Latin edition ‘_inque illarum exaltatione ad magnum ascendit gradum_.’ It should, perhaps, be translated ‘to a high pitch of excellence.’
Footnote 214:
There is an exquisitely engraved covered beaker of this period at South Kensington bearing the arms of the Elector of Trèves (Plate XLII.).
Footnote 215:
Especially by Doppelmayr in his _Historische Nachricht von der Nürnbergischen Mathematicis und Künstlern_, Nürnberg, 1730. A pretentious work, written in the Frenchified German of the day, and very inferior as an authority to Sandrart.
Footnote 216:
It was here that was first developed that hybrid type of drinking-glass which passed over to England early in the eighteenth century. In these glasses the engraved bowl carries us back to Germany, and the air or opaque twisted stem to the _vetro di trina_ of Venice.
Footnote 217:
Quite early in the eighteenth century we find an account of a process by which a gas possessing the property of attacking glass may be made by steeping the ‘hesphorus’ or ‘Bohemian emerald’ in spirits of nitre. As we are told that this ‘hesphorus’ when heated emits a green light, we may safely identify it with fluor-spar (fluoride of calcium).
Footnote 218:
A circular plaque of this character, with a pious inscription, in the Germanic Museum at Nuremberg, has been ascribed to Henry Schwanhart. It is dated 1686 (reproduced by Gerspach, p. 266).
Footnote 219:
We must remember that at this time little distinction was drawn between the researches of the chemist and the alchemist.
Footnote 220:
The ruby glass of our old Gothic churches was, however, without exception obtained from copper. But the belief that it contained gold led in France to the destruction of much of this glass at the time of the Revolution.
Footnote 221:
This book may be best consulted in the French translation, said to be by the Baron D’Holbach (Paris, 1752). Here we have in its final form the little book of Neri, which has passed through the translator’s crucible as many as four times—from Italian to English, then to Latin, to German, and finally to French. For there was, too, an Amsterdam edition in Latin (1668) which came between the English and Kunckel’s version. But, unlike the gold of the alchemist, the work really increased in value during these transformations. Several curious treatises, in the manner of the time, half alchemistic, half scientific, are to be found at the end of the French translation, including a rendering into French of Orschall’s _Sol sine Veste_.
Footnote 222:
The somewhat obscure relations of these two men, Kunckel and Orschall, with Cassius, the reputed discoverer of the purple that goes by his name (as well as with the son of the latter), is explained by Beckmann (_History of Inventions_, vol. i. p. 126).
Footnote 223:
If in the case of the bottle of ruby glass, with the arms of Saxony and the initials J. G., also from the Slade collection (No. 870), these letters are to be referred to the Elector John George (1656-80), Kunckel must have perfected his invention at an early date.
Footnote 224:
There is a portrait of her in the National Gallery by Jan Lievens. See, for some account of her strange life, the note in the Official Catalogue (p. 305). Another supposed portrait of this lady in the same collection is by Gerard Dou.
Footnote 225:
The ‘Beaker with the seasons’ in the British Museum (Plate XLIII.) is an example of the more elaborate work of these Dutch designers with the diamond. For though the inscription on this glass is in English, the decoration is undoubtedly by a member of the school of Roemer Vischer. The beaker is dated 1663.
Footnote 226:
Strictly speaking, the marks on the surface of the glass are rather of the nature of short scratches or dashes than true dots.
Footnote 227:
For this Wolf’s glass, as it is called in Holland, see the catalogue of the Rijks Museum. In this Museum, too, a portrait of Greenwood may be found.
Footnote 228:
A more recent work—the _English Table Glasses_, by Mr. Percy Bate—is concerned with little else than a minute classification of these wine-glasses.
Footnote 229:
One of the early Lorrainers (see below) speaks of the native glass of England as made from _fougère et ronces_.
Footnote 230:
But it is recorded that a Chiddingfold glass-maker (_à propos_ of the introduction of Lorrainers) confessed that he could not make window-glass—only ‘mortars, bottles, and orinaux.’ I cannot accept the explanation of the last word as ‘water globes placed in front of rushlights’ (see _Sussex Glass_, by Charles Dawson, _Antiquary_, 1905); like the vrynells mentioned above, it came through the French from the mediæval Latin _urinalia_. Compare the list of objects given on p. 134.
Footnote 231:
According to the Rev. A. W. C. Hallen (_Scottish Antiquary_, 1893) there were four noble stocks of glass-makers in Lorraine. These were the families of Hennezel (which claimed a Bohemian descent), of Thietry, of Du Thisac, and of Le Houx. So in Normandy we find the names of De Bongar, De Caquery, Le Vaillant, and De Brossard. Representatives of nearly all these families appear to have come to England before the end of the sixteenth century, and their names, often strangely corrupted, have been unearthed from parish registers and other documents in many parts of England. The Lorrainers, at least, seem to have been all of them Calvinists.
Footnote 232:
There had been an earlier unsuccessful attempt at introducing Italian methods, of which I shall have to speak shortly. The Frenchmen do not seem to have come into contact with Verzelini, who was at the time making Venetian glass in London (see below).
Footnote 233:
We may, however, probably identify the Antwerp merchant, Jean Carré, with the ‘John Carry, M^r of y^e Glashouse,’ who was buried at Alford, in Surrey, in 1572.
Footnote 234:
The history of their wanderings has been pieced together chiefly through the researches of Mr. Glazebrook (see his privately printed _Collections for the Genealogy of the noble families of De Hennezel, etc._, 1877); of Mr. Hallen in the _Scottish Antiquary_, 1893; and of Mr. Holmes in the _Antiquary_, 1894.
Footnote 235:
It is just possible, remembering the many exchanges of presents between Henry and Francis, that a part at least of this collection may have had some connection with the ‘_quatre cens beaux verres de Venise gentillisez des plus jolies gayetez que verriers sçauroient inventer_,’ which were in 1532 in the possession of Robertez, treasurer to the French king (Nesbitt, _South Kensington Catalogue_, p. clix).
Footnote 236:
For example, in an abortive act brought into the House in 1585, but not passed. Quoted by Mr. Hartshorne, p. 159.
Footnote 237:
A goblet of similar character, with the date 1584, was not long since smashed to pieces while on view at a saleroom. Like the goblet mentioned in the text, this glass was attributed to Verzelini.
Footnote 238:
As to the other specimens of Elizabethan glass mentioned by Mr. Hartshorne—the chalice-like cup belonging to Mr. Woodruff and the tazza now at Windsor—they have doubtless been long in England, but there is nothing to prove their English make. They are both essentially of forms borrowed from the goldsmith, and like the glass dish in the Williams Library at Gordon Square, they may well have come from Henry VIII.’s collection.
Footnote 239:
Although the _Metallum Martis or Iron made from Pitt-coale_ was not printed till 1665, Dudley had experimented with coal some time before 1619. As early as 1612, in a treatise entitled _Metallica_, Simon Sturtevant, who had already taken out a patent for making iron with pit-coal, states that ‘very lately’ green glass for windows, of good quality, had been melted with that material at Winchester House, Southwark.
Footnote 240:
The most important of these documents are given in full in the Appendix to Mr. Hartshorne’s _English Glasses_.
Footnote 241:
On the other hand, Howell in a letter dated March 18, 1618, quoted in part below, speaks of Mansell as working his patent with ‘My Lord of Pembroke and divers others of the prime Lords of the Court.’ He had, it would seem, replaced the early adventurers and schemers by men of wealth and of influence at court.
Footnote 242:
Beside the passages quoted above there are many references to glass, including an interesting account of Murano, to be found in his _Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ_. Howell edited these early letters of his while confined (for debt, it would seem) in the prison of the Fleet, at the time of the Civil War. We may note among other things a reference to a ‘curious sea-chest of glass,’ and again we hear of a lady writing to Murano for ‘a complete cupboard of true crystall glass.’
Footnote 243:
He got this comparison, doubtless, and a good many other stories that we find in his Venetian letters, from Garzoni’s _Piazza Universale_, or from Fioravanti’s _Specchio_, books most popular at that time, from which I have already quoted when speaking of the glass of Murano.
Footnote 244:
These are little cylindrical vessels for burning tallow. The name survives as an equivalent to a night-light.
Footnote 245:
I am not sure, however, that when at this time the word nitre is found we are always justified in understanding by it saltpetre or nitrate of potash.
Footnote 246:
_Greene-Morelli Correspondence_, Sloane MSS. Mr. Hartshorne has reproduced eight of these letters (_English Glasses_, Appendix xxix.), and has devoted three plates to the reproductions of Greene’s patterns.
Footnote 247:
The same may be said of the treatise on _The Art of Glass_ by Haudicquet de Blancourt, of which the English translation appeared in 1699. There is little or no advance on Merret in this book, and nothing is said of the application of lead-glass to hollow ware. An interesting plate showing the implements used by the glass-blower may, however, be found here.
Footnote 248:
The term originally corresponded to the _verre à pierres_ of the French. It was used in opposition to the ‘green glass’ or _verre de fougère_, in the preparation of which sand was used.
Footnote 249:
The confusion is increased by the fact that on the Continent the term ‘cristal’ was now transferred to the lead-glass.
Footnote 250:
This was the Ravenscroft who took out a patent in 1674, and together with an Altarist, a De Costa (the sole representative of that Ligurian town, says Mr. Hartshorne, that we meet with in English records), made glass from calcined flints, nitre, and borax. There is certainly no question of lead in this case.
Footnote 251:
Mr. Hartshorne, I should add, while acknowledging that there is no definite allusion to the use of lead in any document of the seventeenth century, traces an indirect reference to it in a patent taken out by one Tilson as early as 1663; in this document, however, I can find nothing pointing in that direction.
Footnote 252:
The new financial methods are well illustrated in the quotation from Houghton on p. 318.
Footnote 253:
In this work there are more than a hundred quarto pages devoted to the eighteenth-century drinking-glasses. Perhaps of greater interest to the ‘average man’ is the information given in the final chapter concerning the liquids drunk from these glasses, to say nothing of the apt quotations from old letters throwing light on the social habits of the time to be found in the notes. Another vast series of eighteenth-century glasses, more than seven hundred in number, I believe, has been collected by Mr. J. Webb Singer, chiefly in the neighbourhood of Bristol. These are well illustrated in a paper by Mr. E. Wynn Penny in the _Burlington Magazine_ (Sept. and Nov. 1903).
Footnote 254:
In the earlier pre-renaissance glasses, the foot was folded over _from below upwards_. It was the Venetians who first introduced the downward fold of the welted base.
Footnote 255:
This drawn-out ‘blow,’ or inverted tear, is often found in the stems of the solid tavern glass of the first half of the eighteenth century (Hartshorne, p. 265).
Footnote 256:
Mr. Hartshorne, however, thinks that our English workmen, especially at Bristol, were capable of turning out opaque-twisted stems as good as, if not better than, those made in Holland. On the other hand, the stems with interlacing ruby and white threads, so characteristic of the latter country, never form part of typical English glasses.
Footnote 257:
The famous Royal Oak glass, with the portrait of Charles II., now belonging to Mr. Festing (Hartshorne, Plate 29), is certainly a case in point, whatever may be the origin of the glass itself. But this goblet is scratched with a diamond.
Footnote 258:
The latter inscription refers of course to the famous forty-fifth number of Wilkes’s _North Briton_ (April 1763). The ‘No Excise’ may be associated with the successful agitation against Walpole’s bill in 1733-34, or perhaps rather with later protests of the same nature.
Footnote 259:
For these glasses see especially the twenty-fourth chapter of Mr. Hartshorne’s often-quoted work, not neglecting the most interesting notes.
Footnote 260:
It must be remembered that ‘James III.’ did not die until 1766; his ‘reign’ of sixty-five years exceeded that of any other English prince. Although most of these Jacobite glasses date from a period rather after than before ‘the ’45’ there was still a long interval during which the attribution I have suggested would be justified.
Footnote 261:
This house has remained in the hands of the same family since the time it was built by Walter Jones, in the reign of James I.
Footnote 262:
This period of English glass is not represented in the British Museum. It is well illustrated in the collection of Mr. C. E. Jerningham, and there are some fine examples among the more miscellaneous glass of Mr. FitzHenry now (1906) on view at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Footnote 263:
I have purposely gone to older works for these technical details, that is to say, to works written before the general introduction of modern mechanical processes; for example, to Apsley Pellat’s _Curiosities of Glass-making_, and to the treatise on glass by Porter in Lardner’s series (1832). For the _materials_ used in England in the eighteenth century see Dossie’s _Handmaid of the Arts_, 2nd edition, 1764.
Footnote 264:
This is the more strange, as in all the recipes of the time for making the white enamel, even in one relating apparently to this very Bristol glass, arsenic plays an important part.
Footnote 265:
Dossie, in his _Handmaid of the Arts_, 2nd ed., 1764, tells us that at that time much white opaque glass, in imitation of porcelain, was made near London. The glass, he states, was rendered opaque by tin, by antimony, or by arsenic. Much of this material was doubtless employed for enamelling on metal.
Footnote 266:
Chardin was a French dealer in precious stones who supplied the Shah with European jewels. The materials for the account of Persia from which the extract given in the text is taken, were collected during a voyage in that country in the years 1671 and 1672. Chardin, who was of an old Protestant family, settled later on in England and was knighted by Charles II. I quote from the English translation of 1724, checking it by the contemporary French edition.
Footnote 267:
At Vienna, in the Museum for Art and Industry, there is a small collection of glass from Hebron. Besides the bangles of opaque glass which belong to the old primitive family, there are some small vessels of a deep amber-coloured glass similar to that brought from Rhodes, and finally a few vases of Persian type of a bluish-green metal; among the last group may be found some lamps with glass tubes similar to those mentioned in the text.
Footnote 268:
The miscellaneous beads, found chiefly in the neighbourhood of Benares and Cawnpore, are associated for the most part with Buddhist remains of the time of the Gupta dynasty, which reigned in Northern India shortly before our era, but very few of these beads are of glass. Of great interest are the spindle-shaped beads, decorated with intersecting lines of enamel—black, grey, or white—on a ground of quartz, or sometimes of carnelian. A series of these beads may be seen in the ‘Gallery of Religions’ in the British Museum. They are described by Mrs. J. R. Rivett-Carnac in the _Journal of Indian Art_, vol. ix.
Footnote 269:
At the Indian Exhibition held at Earl’s Court a few years ago, some of these Indian glass-makers were at work in a little hut, and here the native processes could be watched.
Footnote 270:
Through the kindness of Mr. Forrest, ex-Director of Records at the India Office, I have been enabled to examine a collection of small glass vessels obtained by him in the Kaira district of Guzerat. Among them I noticed some graceful little cruet-shaped ewers of a pale pinkish glass—the colour apparently obtained from gold—and also some glass lamps of rounded conical form similar to those used in Cairo.
Footnote 271:
My chief authorities for the early history of Chinese glass are the works of Dr. Hirth, especially a paper on the subject in his _Chinesische Studien_, and some casual remarks in Dr. Bushell’s _Oriental Ceramic Art_. [I have at the last moment been able to add a few notes to what I have written, based on the chapter on glass in Dr. Bushell’s _Chinese Art_. June 1906.]
Footnote 272:
Thus we have the statements of the missionaries Ricci and Du Halde, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries respectively, that the Chinese made glass. As far back as the twelfth century, the Arab writer Edrisi speaks of glass-workers in the Chinese town of Djan-ku, wherever that may be.
Footnote 273:
Dr. Bushell, however, thinks that there is evidence that in the fifth century glass of Indo-Scythian origin reached Northern China by way of the great trade route through Chinese Turkestan. About the same time it was brought from the West, by the sea route, to the southern capital (the modern Nanking). The manufacture was at that time established in both North and South China, and ‘has been carried on with indifferent success ever since’ (_Chinese Art_, vol. ii. pp. 60-61).
Footnote 274:
The very absence of native enamelled glass might indeed be used as an argument against the otherwise plausible theory that it was from the Saracenic glass that the Chinese first learned how to enamel their porcelain with fusible colours over the glaze. See on this point my book on Porcelain in this series, p. 87. Dr. Bushell mentions ‘the recent discovery in mosques of the western provinces of China of a number of hanging lamps of characteristic shape, enamelled in colours,’ with Arabic motives and script. Some of these have been taken to America. _Chinese Art_, vol. ii. p. 69.
Footnote 275:
Hu succeeded in splitting up the character with which his simple name was written into the two ideographs Ku and Yueh, and thereupon adopted the more imposing title ‘Chamber of the Ancient Moon.’
Footnote 276:
This collection is described in the _Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst_, vol. xx., in an article on Chinese glass by Herr A. Bapst.
Footnote 277:
Dr. Bushell hints that such inscriptions may in cases have been added by modern curio-dealers in Pekin, as a bait to European collectors.
Footnote 278:
As arranged now at South Kensington, the carved glass may be compared with the companion series in agate and other stones.
Footnote 279:
Dossie, in his _Handmaid of the Arts_ (2nd ed., 1764), declares that there was at the time he was writing a great demand in China for ‘the brown Venetian glass with gold-spangles, called the Philosopher’s Stone.’
Footnote 280:
The making of glass is still an important industry at Poshan, where the native quartz-rock is melted with saltpetre. Window-glass, bottles, and lanterns are made, and the clear glass is exported in the form of long rods tied up in bundles. Williamson’s _Journeys in North China_, vol. i. p. 131.
Footnote 281:
See, for confirmation of this, the previous note. In China to-day the word _liao_ has replaced the older names for glass. For the better kinds of work the Shantung glass is worked up at Pekin—this is the _Ching liao_. Bushell, _Chinese Art_, vol. ii. p. 63.
Footnote 282:
I have to thank Professor Church for the results of an analysis of a snuff-bottle ‘like nearly white jade or milk-quartz faintly greenish.’ It contained lead-oxide, 48·3 per cent.; potash, 8·8 per cent.; soda, 1·1 per cent.; and silica, 41·5 per cent. We have here a remarkably pure potash-lead glass, for only 0·2 per cent, of alumina and iron oxide was found. The specific gravity of this specimen was 3·8; that of another bottle of clear strong green glass was 3·7.
Footnote 283:
In some of the Imperial tombs of the sixth and seventh centuries of our era glass jars have been found. One of these is described as of white glass ornamented with round knobs. In the grave of the Emperor Nintoku (fifth century) were found fragments of blue and white glass. It is very unlikely that any of this glass was made in Japan.
Footnote 284:
Now in the British Museum; it is referred to on p. 152.
Transcriber's Notes
Dashes used to represent duplicated entries in the Index have been replaced by the text they represent.
Some presumed printer's errors have been corrected. In particular, punctuation has been normalized. Spelling in the Index has been corrected to match the spelling in the main text. Additional corrections are listed below with the text as printed (top) and the corrected text (bottom):
might have have been might have been (p. 255)
of that of European origin three is no need to speak of that of European origin there is no need to speak (p. 342)
Lorraine was was not yet Lorraine was not yet (Footnote 172)