The Baroque Period

The Venetian glass style was enormously successful in all of the 17th century and emigration of glassworkers from Murano continued on a massive scale as did the fortune of the façon de Venise style. What aided the divulgation of the Venetian glassworks compositions was the publication of the formula book L'Arte Vetraria by the Florentine Antonio Neri in 1612. The book was translated into English in 1662, into Latin in 1668, into German in 1778 and 1779, into French in 1752 and into Spanish in 1778.

In the Netherlands slender forms were the prevalent ones, especially flute chalices, and diamond point engravings. Chalices with plaited glass-snake stems (verres à serpents) or stems decorated with coloured glass flowers (verres à fleurs) and filigree decorations and ice ones, were held in high esteem.

The snake chalices had significant success in Germany too, where, however, enamel decoration on blown glass in various styles and especially on the Humpen, continued to be widely practiced. The flourishing of façon de Venise glass did not abate not even in Catatonia. Using, in general, yellowish glass which is sometimes but not always quite blistered, Venetian objects were produced sometimes with typically local details: stems unusually slender and lengthened and squashed parallel ribbed handles.

There were also bizarre and zoomorphic shapes and, especially in the 18th century, typically local use shapes decorated in the Venetian style: the porró, càntir and almorratxa. In England the import of Venetian crystal was considerable in the 17th century too. Designs sent by the merchant John Green to his Murano supplier between 1667 and 1672 are proof that the English market demanded both Venetian models and typically local forms from Venice. The prohibition in 1615 of the use of wood as fuel, led to the adoption of coal, and in this regard Sir Robert Mansell was a pioneer in the first half of the 17th century. This determined the move away from the forests to the city of the glassworks, now no longer conditioned by the provision of wood. There were two other consequences which derived from the use of this new fuel. The smoke from coal dirtied the glass, rendering it almost black and thus was particularly suited for wine bottles, which were thus protected by the damaging effects of light. The 'black' English type bottles were imitated in France and also in Murano in the 18th century. For working with crystal, which had to be protected from smoke, a furnace was invented which was very ventilated with partially covered crucibles.

As far back as the Renaissance in Murano, in addition to the 1400s colours, the gold ruby red glass was obtained and the opacified opaline with the phosphates present in the calcinated bones. Around 1620, aventurin was invented, a glass characterised by dense copper crystals, similar to gilded thin plates, and, towards the end of the century, the girasol, an opalescent glass, with its first known formula dating back to 1693. Its light opacity was obtained with lead arsenate. In the 17th century opaque yellow glass was also in fashion, obtained with a 'core', that is, a semi-worked glass with a lead and tin antimony microcrystal base, which was powdered and added to the molten glass at a low temperature, to opacify and colour it.

While the crystals used were still simple ones, albeit in varying proportions compared to the Renaissance, decorative glass became increasingly more complex. Cups or ends of chalices and walls of bottles were decorated with 'morise' or fin-style pinched ribs. The ends were plaited snake shaped or floral decorations, diamond point engravings were fanciful and rich in holes, leaves and animals.

Chalices with one or more constrictions on the wall of the cup were typical, which were similar to 'zucarini' glasses (pumpkin shaped) from Murano, and oil lamps in the shape of horses or animals, bunches of grapes, violins, with the mouth for the wick shaped like a head of a dragon. The most sumptuous and varied example of the best Venetian Baroque glasswork is the collection in the Rosemburg Castle in Copenhagen, consisting of almost 600 pieces, which is the result of the stay in Venice in the winter of 1708-1709 of Frederick IV of Denmark. Towards the end of the 17th century, the Venetian hegemony was progressively weakened, until it gave way to new glassworks, especially the Bohemian and English ones. Bohemia was an important glassworks area thanks to the vast spread of forests which supplied fuel and plants, from whose ashes molten ash was taken. Around 1570 the Bohemian glassworkers learnt to purify potassium using methods that the Venetians applied to soda from the middle of the 15th century and learnt to use manganese dioxide as a decolouriser.

Wheel engraving on glass, which was developed in Prague at the court of Rudolph II of Hapsburg in the last years of the 16th century, derived from engravings on hard stone, practiced by refined engravers who were called to the court, where the Miseroni Milanese dynasty excelled from 1588. Working on the basis of superimposed engravings, engravings were made at various depths thereby obtaining decorations resembling bas-relief due to an optical effect. This was the origin of a glassworks art based on the perception of glass as sculpture material. The first wheel engraved work which was dated and signed is by Caspar Lehman, an engraver on hard stone and glass, and dates back to 1605. It is a glass with allegorical figures but generally he engraved glass sheets often with portraits of Rudolph II and other sovereigns. He had students, including Georg Schwanhardt from Nuremberg, who is considered the founder of the engraving school in the Bavarian city.

The Thirty Year War (1618-1648) marked a crisis period in all of Europe, and in Bohemia, which was invaded by Emperor Ferdinand II troops, there were social and economic upheavals and the end of the artistic ferment promoted by Rudolph II. With peace in Westphalia, the situation in Bohemia stabilised and artistic glass work took off again. Up to 1690 the prevalent forms were Venetian style chalices but gradually the Bohemian style chalice took over with thick walls, suitable for engraving, and with variously shaped solid stems.

In 1683 Michael Müller, who was active in the Janouaek glassworks in southern Bohemia, perfected a potash crystal with calcium carbonate, in the form of chalk, as a component. He was the first in Bohemia to also obtain gold ruby red. Bohemian wheel engravings from the 17th century are quite simple, not very deep and not polished.

From about the year 1700, as engravings became deeper, it became more refined and was influenced by the French decorative style: girali, grotesques, crests, portraits of sovereigns, figures of saints, allegories and hunting scenes. The Bohemian production was massive: in 1753 there were 57 active glassworks, in 1799 there were seventy-nine, with three thousand workers. Silesia too, which was part of the Bohemia kingdom from 1526 to 1742, was the seat of important engraving studios, particularly the Jelenia Gora valley, near the border of Bohemia. Here in the last quarter of the 17th century, count Christof Leopold Schaffgotsch opened a studio for the extraordinary engraver Friedrich Winter, who produced some of the most significant Baroque style engraved glass pieces. In his chalices, he combined engraving with relief cutting (generally spiral forms), which was one of the major claims to fame of the Silesian glassworks even after the death of Winter, up to the middle of the 18th century. Between 1740 and 1760 in Silesia, particularly in the Cieplice area, engravings were characterised by rococo decorative motifs, after which it rapidly declined.

In Germany, the chemist and glass technician Johann Kunckel, author in 1679 of Ars Vitraria Experimentalis, which was the commented translation of Antonio Neri's Arte Vetraria, was active near Potsdam in the glassworks founded by the Elector of Brandenburg and obtained splendid gold ruby red glass and opal glass, opacified with calcinated bones. This glassworks supplied glass to the engraving studio founded by the same Elector in Berlin, where engravers Martin Winter and Gottfried Spiller worked, who came from Silesia. Kassel too was an important engraving and relief cutting centre. Johann Kunckel gave a detailed description in his book of the 'Zwischengoldglas' technique, based on gold or silver foil applied to the surface of glass, graffitied and protected by a slightly larger glass on the outside. This technique was particularly in fashion between 1730 and 1755 in Bohemia and Germany and was used again by the Austrian decorator Josef Mildner between 1787 and 1808. Another decorative technique of notable refinement was black and sepia enamel painting, which was introduced in 1660 by the German Johann Shaper and then developed in Nuremberg by his students in Nuremberg and by Ignaz Presseler in eastern Bohemia in the 1720s and 1730s.

In the Netherlands, both Antwerp and Amsterdam were the locations of façon de Venise glassworks. Diamond point graffiti was widely practiced, even by amateur decorators. Diamond point graffiti became shorter and thicker until it was reduced to dotted engravings, called 'stippelen' (stippling) with chiaroscuro effects similar to etching. The inventor of this technique is attributed to Frans Greenwood from Dordrecht, near Rotterdam, in about 1720. An exceptional stippling artist, David Wolf, was active in The Hague, who chose portraits as his decorative subjects, including members of the royal family, and allegorical scenes and figures. His works are generally dated from 1770 to 1798, the year of his death.

Wheel engraved crystals were also in fashion in the Netherlands in all of the 18th century, which were initially imported from Bohemia and Germany, then engraved locally by immigrant engravers. There were often commissioned on the occasion of particular events and sometimes local engravers decorated lead crystal produced in England. After the refined English façon de Venise production, English glassworks were the protagonist of a technological revolution. The London merchant George Ravenscroft, who had resided in Venice for business reasons, founded a glassworks in 1673, where he used Venetian glassworkers too, and began experimenting on crystalline glass, supported by the Glass Seller's Company, which was the control body for glass production. In 1674, Ravenscroft obtained a patent for a particular type of crystalline glass resembling rock crystal. This glass was also called 'flint glass' because it was obtained with calcinated quartz pebbles similar to those from the Ticino river used in Venice. Its unstable composition though very rapidly gave rise to a thick network of craquelure within the wall. To improve its composition, in 1676 Ravenscroft introduced lead oxide in the ratio of 27% of the mixture to act as a stabiliser, probably inspired by the formulas in Antonio Neri's Arte Vetraria, which was translated into English in 1662.

With this new sonorous and shiny glass, he made chalices, glasses, plates, cups, jugs and bottles characterised by Venetian style details mainly in forms which were in fashion in England, like the typical posset pot. From 1677 he marked his products with the head of a raven. He retired in 1679. Ravenscroft's patent expired in 1681, and from then on, lead crystal became common heritage of the best English glassworkers. Soon after, in about 1690, hot decorations (mould-ribbing and applications) were left behind in favour of essential and slender forms. The solid baluster stem in chalices, which at times has an inside air bubble, was later substituted by an applied rectilinear stem, at times interrupted by solid bumps, or drawn, by pulling from the bottom of the cup (drawn-stem).

With George I from Hanover's ascent to the throne in 1715, the 'Silesian' stem became established, mould-shaped with four, six or eight faces. Between 1745 and 1755, stems with internal air spirals were fashionable (air-twist stem) and the longer so-called 'incised twist stem', which actually is not incised but has thin relief ribbings obtained via hot working. While air spirals fell out of fashion, stems with threads of coloured internal spirals or milk glass established themselves. While the wine chalice has a small opening, there is also the bigger beer chalice, the enormous 'constable glass', used for repeated toasts and passed from one table guest to another, the posset pot, with an opening for thick drinks, and the 'firing-glass', with a very solid base so that it can be hit firmly on the table after a toast. In the last twenty years of the 18th century, lead glass production glassworks were active in Belfast, Cork, Dublin and Waterford.

The decoration of the cup was sometimes decorated. Diamond point engraving was widespread from the time of the façon de Venise glassworks, often for commemorative engravings or of a political nature, up to after the 18th century. The fashion for wheel engravings was stimulated by the import of Bohemian and German products. It was introduced to England by immigrant Bohemian and German engravers, who then had English students, but engravings on English crystal were often carried out in the Netherlands. After the middle of the century, facet cutting was adopted which highlighted the shininess of the lead crystal. In enamel decorations, the Beilby family stands out, especially William Beilby, who was active in Newcastle upon Tyne in the 1770s, who decorated with white enamels or with lively polychromes. In London James Giled was a refined enamel and gold decorator.

The Bohemian and English style and technique spread in all the European countries. France, which was already a destination for immigrant glassworkers from Venice and Altare, was attracted to the new Bohemian glass. It imported Bohemian glass and, in the second half of the 18th century, produced façon de Bohême glass. Glassworks of distinction were the Baccarat Glassworks in Lorraine, founded in 1764, and the Saint Louis Glassworks, founded in 1767. In the 1780s, both converted to English style lead crystal. Nevers stood out up to the beginning of the 17th century and for all of the 18th century for the production of lamp figurines, including some complex compositions, shaped around thin metallic structures.

In Spain, Catalonia remained faithful to Venetian style hot working, though it was used in the typically local whimsical style, while in Andalusia production of glass continued following its own style and was impervious to dictates of the most noble European glassworks. The Bourbon court was attracted to Bohemian crystal and new mirrors and lamps with faceted pendants. In 1728 the Catalan Ventura Sit founded in San Ildefondo (Segovia), near the La Granja royal estate, a furnace for the production of mirrors, which struck Queen Isabella Farnese who ordered for the construction of a new furnace within the estate for him. After the death of Ventura Sit, the La Granja royal factory, in addition to mirrors, produced lamps with metallic structures and pendants made of faceted crystal. From as far back as the times of Ventura Sit, the Real Fábrica produced blown crystal, ground and engraved in the Bohemian style. The most ornate ones date back to the second half of the century and the engravings stand out due to the gilding. A second glassworks was founded in 1768: the Real Fábrica de Cristales, which produced crystals and milk glass and enamelled or gilded coloured glass, with decorative motifs which were firstly rococo and then neoclassical. Around 1800, the style of engravings and grindings was strongly influenced by English glassworks.

The façon de Bohême glass had enormous success in Russia too. As far back as the times of Peter the Great, the first state glassworks was founded in St Petersburg at the beginning of the 18th century. After the closure of other two state glassworks, which were founded in the second half of the 18th century, a new one was founded in 1743. Then in the middle of the century another glassworks, given to Prince Potemkin to run, became state owned after his death in 1792: the St Petersburg Imperial Glassworks. All these glassworks supplied especially the court, with Bohemian style crystal, in which along with engravings, there was also enamel and gold foil.

Scandinavia too, which was previously a destination for immigrant glassworkers from Murano, followed the Bohemian and German style from the beginning of the 18th century. In Sweden the first glassworks were situated in the Stockholm area and in other areas in the centre. In the 18th century in the South, in particular in Småland, new glassworks were founded, whose production was assigned initially to immigrant Germans. The Kungsholm glassworks made a name for themselves for its engraved crystal. The English influence was felt in Norway but here wheel engravings of a German-Bohemian nature were applied to lead crystal. The glassworks in Nøstetangen in the south of the country, founded in 1741, applied German-style wheel engraving to crystal.

Venice too gave in to Bohemian glass, and imported large quantities of it. Glassworkers in Murano adapted to new requirements from the beginning of the 18th century by fusing semi-worked material and scraps which came from Bohemia. In 1737, the Council of Ten conceded a 20-year patent for the production of potash crystal to the glassworker and furnace-head Giuseppe Briati, who stated that he had taken in foreign glassworkers. When the patent expired, other glassworkers imitated the products. Wheel engraving was introduced in Venice in the second half of the 17th century thanks to the immigration of German engravers, whose local students were more expert in the decoration of mirrors rather than blown objects. Briati produced crystals, lamps, 'deseri' or table centrepieces and furniture decorated with glass inlays. Venetian potash crystals were not popular amongst foreign buyers, who preferred aventurins, coloured glass and enamel decorated milk glass: in all these productions, the Miotti family stood out, who marked milk glass painted with lively coloured enamel from 1727 to 1747.

Two furniture pieces had enormous success during the baroque period: mirrors and lamps. Glass mirrors had already been produced in Venice at the beginning of the 16th century by blowing a large cylinder, which was then cut and flattened. The work of polishing and mirroring was then handed over to mirror makers, who were specialised artisans in Venice. In the second half of the 17th century, heavily structured mirrors whose frames were also mirrored, and engraved and cold-painted blue glass mirrors, were produced. Those from the 18th century are lighter, often with engraved and gilded wooden frames, at times with figures engraved in the centre. Jean-Baptiste Colbert wanted to free France from Venetian imports and so founded the 'Manufacture royale des glaces à miroirs' in Paris in 1665, under the presidency of Nicolas du Noyer and which was activated with the collaboration of immigrant glassworkers from Murano. Bernardo Perrotto from Altare, who from Nevers had moved to Orléans to open a glassworks, came up with a system to obtain mirrored sheets by casting incandescent glass on a flat surface. This permitted the production of larger mirrors compared to those produced using the traditional Venetian technique of blowing a glass cylinder. In 1688 he obtained a patent, which was cancelled in 1996 in favour of a similar patent, given to the new 'Manufacture royale des glaces de France' (Paris, Saint-Gobain, Tourlaville) which had taken possession of Perrotta's ingenious idea. In the 18th century, the casting system for producing mirrored sheets was adopted in Spain too, at the La Granja royal glassworks in San Ildefonso, which boasted the largest sheets in Europe. In England, there had already been production of mirrors in the first half of the 18th century. English mirrors in the 18th century were very refined, and were often engraved with rococo, neo-gothic, chinoiserie, neo-classical and wheel-engraved motifs. Lamps produced in Venice at the beginning of the 18th century with a bronze structure and pendant elements of faceted crystal were famous. They are in the façon de Bohême style, and look like the lamps produced in Bohemia in that period. In reality, they are derived from bronze or copper lamps with faceted rock crystal pendants (successively with crystal glass too), produced in France in the second half of the 17th century. The royal factory in San Ildefonso too produced them, initially with a bronze structure, then with the arms in cut crystal too. Venetian furnaces soon, though, made a new type of lamp, the 'ciocca' (literally: bunch of flowers) for the characteristic polychromatic glass flower decorations. The most well-known producer was Giuseppe Briati from at least 1739. In the second half of the 18th century, in Venetian papers, 'column', 'Chinese-style' and modern lamps are mentioned: the modern ones might have been decorated with flowers. The most sumptuous ones have hot-decorated elements supported by a metallic structure completely covered with glass-blown elements: 'bossette' (small bottles) lamps. Other simpler ones have glass self-supporting arms. English lamps made of shiny lead crystal with pendants, pinnacles and cut-decorated self-supporting arms, were of a very controlled richness. In the Far East, China and India stood out for the production of artistic glass but quite late. We know little of Chinese glass production before the 17th century. At the end of that century a glassworks was set up within the Forbidden City thanks to a German Jesuit. In the 18th century refined colours were obtained, like red or golden pink, and engraving was adopted on both monochromatic walls and glass of several differently coloured layers, resulting in complex cameo decorations. In India, the production of artistic glass was stimulated by the Mongolian emperor Akbar around the end of the 16th century. Glassworks centres sprung up in Bihar and Alwar, in the royal cities of Delhi and Agra. Strongly coloured glass blown objects were often richly decorated with enamel and gold. Imports from Europe were however always important, thereby leading to the Indian glassworks crisis of the 19th century.