Techniques

Rosa Barovier Mentasti

Acid Cutting

This is a technique to make the surface matt with a satin finish, or even deeply etch it by following a decorative motif, even on very thin vitreous walls. It was experimented in the 17th …

Hollow Ware Applications

Hollow ware applications are obtained by starting with a good-sized gob of glass attached to the wall of the mould. While the gobs are incandescent, the glassworker blows inside the object, …

Applied Filaments

Applied festoon filament decoration dates back to the early days of the history of glass and was used on both pearls and containers.

Festooned Thread Applications

This decoration is called 'fenicio' (Phoenician) in Murano, and was adopted between the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century. It was used before this time in various …

Applied Broken Threads

A glass filament is applied to a blown ribbed object which has been significantly cooled.

Applied Blobs

The blob can be in relief or incorporated into the wall by marvering the object. The blobs can be of various dimensions and can form big, pointed knobs like in some types from the Middle …

Applied Splinters

Glass splinters of various dimensions can be laid out on a metal or marble surface, which are then attached around the surface of a blown object or a solid glass, marvering on top of it.

Cameo Glass

The Roman craftsman immersed a blue-glassed or another coloured blown object in a crucible of opaque-white glass so as to obtain a white inside layer ('flashing' or 'dip-overlay').

Rode

Glass rode have been produced since the beginning of glass making.

Casting

This is a very old technique which today though is also used for sculpture-sized works in the glass studio.

Staining

In German: Ätzung. Sometimes erroneously called 'polished', which, though, is characterised by an iridescent effect, due precisely to the ceramic glaze.

Lost Wax Process

The lost wax process is very old and derives from a process for shaping bronze.

Corrosion

This is an acid cutting technique used in Venice from the 1930s.

Transfer Printing

This is a process invented after the middle of the 18th century. It was then adopted in Great Britain at the beginning of the 19th century and the Russian glassworks in about 1840.

Half Filigree

The rods which are cut into same-length segments are laid parallel to each other on a metal surface covered with refractory clay or on a ceramic slab, then inserted repeatedly in the furnace…

Reticella Filigree

A blown half-filigree cylinder is blown inside by an identical blown cylinder, removed from the pipe and opened at the top, of a slightly larger diameter, exactly at half-filigree but with …

Twisted ('A retortoli') Filigree

This is one of the most important techniques invented in Murano during the Renaissance. It was patented in 1527 for 10 years by Filippo and Bernardo Catani with Murano furnaces dedicated to Venice and was soon common practice amongst the Murano glassworks

Gold (and Silver) Leaf on Hot Glass

Gold leaf on hot glass is already used in the Hellenistic and Roman eras and becomes quite common in Venice from the 15th century. Today it is used everywhere.

Gold-Leaf Engraved

The gold or silver leaf can be cold-applied to the glass too in the decoration laboratory.The gold leaf is applied to the glass surface which has been spread with a flux.Then the decorator …

Fusing

This is a very old technique which has nothing to do with blowing. Mosaic glass also uses the fusing techniques.

Ice Glass

The decorative technique involves immersing the incandescent glass attached to a blow pipe, in a bucket of water. The thermal shock produces a thick network of surface cracks. The craftsman …

Graal

The Graal glass technique was invented by the designer Simon Gate in collaboration with the craftsman Knut Bergqvist at Orrefors Glasbruk, Sweden, in 1916. Today it is used in other …

Incalmo

The effect is that of obtaining blown objects characterised by two or more areas of different colours or coloured differently. Two cylindrically-shaped blown objects which are different in …

Overlay

In Venice, the blown object at the initial stage is immersed in a crucible of a different colour and then expanded, thereby thinning the wall of the glass. It was used for Roman and also …

Diamond Point Engraving

Diamond point engraving on blown objects was adopted in 1549 in Murano, fifteen years after it was used on mirrors. In the Roman period, similar but rougher engravings were probably carried …

Roller Engraving

The engravings are carried out by a vertical copper wheel, which varies in thickness and size, welded onto a lathe, once powered by pedals and nowadays by an electric motor. A flexible brass…

Lampworking

A furnace-stretched glass rod is used by the lamp craftsman as semi-worked. He softens the rod with the heat from a horizontal flame fuelled by methane gas and air or methane gas and oxygen …

Lampblowing

This is a second-stage working technique which was inspired in 1922 by the invention of borosilicate glass, Pyrex, in the United States.

Half Moulding

This was one of the main techniques in the Venetian Renaissance and the façon de Venise glassworks. This technique has never been abandoned in Murano.

Millefiori

A small quantity of glass is attached to a short metal rod by the specialised craftsman, and then inserted in a star-shaped mould. After being briefly immersed in water to cool the glass, it…

Mosaic

Fused glass is poured from a crucible onto a metal surface and flattened in the shape of a round plate. In the case of gold or silver leaf mosaic, the metal leaf is laid on the plate, then a…

Nipped Diamond-Wise

The name derives from a note by the famous English glass craftsman George Ravenscroft in 1677. But it was already in use during the Venetian Renaissance.

Core-Forming

This is one of the oldest techniques to form hollow-ware glass before the invention of blowing and dates from about the middle of the 2nd millenium AD.

Lost-Wax Process

This is a very old technique and derives from a metal fusion technique. It disappeared with the fall of the Roman Empire, but was then taken up in France at the end of the 19th century. …

Enamel Painting

Enamel painting is one of the most widely used techniques over the centuries, though it requires specialised technical expertise. The first known examples were from the Roman period starting…

Mould Pressing

As far back as the 2nd millennium BC, pressed glass objects were produced in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. Over the course of centuries, the technique was never abandoned.

Sand-Blasting

This process was invented by Benjamin Tilghman in Philadelphia in 1870. It was initially also used on illumination glass and decorative vases, on which high-relief decorative patterns could …

Slumping

This is a technique used in modern times but is based on the principle on which in the past glass sheets - which were made by cutting a blown cylinder - were reduced to a perfectly …

Blowing

The adoption of a metal rod increased the productive range and rendered the glassworker's job easier. One end of the metal rod was inserted in the crucible containing the incandescent glass …

Mould-Blowing

The mono-block dip-mould glass, generally made of metal, produces an imprint of a relief decoration on the surface of the glass while it is the glassworker's hand that determines the form …

Overlaying

The craftsman picks up a small amount of glass with a blow pipe, slightly blows it (if he wants to produce a blown glass object), then immerses it in a crucible of different colours. He can …

Mosaic Glass

Tessera made of coloured glass or sections of polychromatic rods, millefiori for example, can be laid together on a surface covered with refractory clay or on a surface of suitable ceramic …