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CATALOGUE OF PRICES OF PRINCIPAL PIECES OF GLASS 191

FIG.

INTRODUCTORY

The origin of glass is lost in antiquity. Pliny, indeed, ascribes its discovery to certain Phoenician mariners who, being shipwrecked upon a sandy shore, used a block of the natron which formed their cargo to support a pot which they were putting over an improvised fire. The heat fused the sand with the natron, and lo! the glass was discovered in the ashes.

Since, however, Pliny's authority was Rumour, and since, also, such a phenomenon is a physical impossibility--for no bonfire could produce a temperature at which sand would fuse--it is possible that Rumour in Pliny's day had a no greater reputation for reliability than in the twentieth century. But the story, if not true, is at least well invented and serves to show at how early an age in the world's history glass was known.

At a later date glass was extensively made in Alexandria, the sand in the vicinity being of exceptional purity and so, suitable for its manufacture. The city speedily became celebrated for the beauty of its output, and articles of Alexandrian glass were largely exported to Greece and to Rome, where also, in the space of a few years, glass-houses were established; and to Constantinople, which was, in time, to become famous for the manufacture of coloured glass and of the Mosaics so dear to the Oriental taste.

The Greeks do not appear to have developed the art of glass-making at a very early age, but specimens of glass have been found in Grecian tombs, and, in the Golden Age of Ancient Greece, when art and literature reached their zenith under Pericles, glass was certainly employed for purposes of architectural decoration.

In Rome, however, the art of glass manufacture found a congenial home and was developed to a high pitch of excellence. So widespread was its use that it is a truism to say that in Rome of two thousand years ago glass was employed for a greater number of purposes--domestic, architectural, and ornamental--than it is to-day, even though the glazing of windows was in its infancy and the use of the material for optical purposes was scarcely known. In effect, coloured and ornamental glass held much the same place in the Roman household that china and earthenware do among us to-day. Glass was used for pavements and for the external covering of walls. The Roman glass-workers were particularly happy in their combination of colours, both by fusing together threads of various colours, or by fusing masses, so as to imitate onyx, porphyry, serpentine, and other ornamental stones.

The most interesting of all was the famous cameo glass. A bubble of opaque white glass was blown, and this was coated with blue and a further layer of opaque white superimposed. The outer coat of blue was removed from the portion which was to display the design, leaving the white to be carved into whatever figures the artist's fancy dictated. The finest example extant of this kind of ware is the famous Portland vase in the British Museum.

Meanwhile, other European nations had taken their cue from Venice, and glass-houses sprang up in various parts of the Continent, particularly in France and in Bohemia; the latter, indeed, speedily became the great rival of Venice.

In England, as we shall see, glass was made during the Roman occupation. Under the Saxons, glass-workers were imported from the Continent, but to judge from the number and variety of the specimens found in Anglo-Saxon tombs, it is probable that it was also manufactured to an equal extent at home. During the Middle Ages the art appears to have fallen into abeyance, save in a few isolated instances to be noted later, but in the sixteenth century the custom of using glass vessels was introduced from France and the Low Countries, most of the pieces being imported from Venice. To prevent the money thus expended from leaving the country, efforts were made about the middle of the century to establish the art by the aid of workmen from Murano, and the history of glass manufactured in England may be said to have fairly begun. It was undoubtedly stimulated by the religious persecutions on the Continent, particularly the Spanish Terror in the Netherlands, for the Low Countries were seriously endeavouring to rival Murano in the art, and the craftsmen who fled for refuge to England undoubtedly did much to develop their trade in the country of their adoption, as did the Huguenot refugees at a later period.

In the seventeenth century the whole process was revolutionised by the introduction of a large proportion of oxide of lead, making what is technically known as "flint" glass--a glass much more brilliant than any other, a quality due partly to its transparency and partly to its increased refractive power, which renders it specially fitted for "cutting"--a process which enhances its beauty by increasing the number of ways in which the light rays falling on the glass are dispersed. The discovery has given English glass a well-deserved pre-eminence for beauty of metal--a pre-eminence which the glass-cutters of the eighteenth century admirably sustained by the excellence of their work.

Although it is no part of the purpose of this book to deal in detail with the technical side of the manufacture of glass, yet some few words as to the nature of the material with which we are dealing are not only desirable but essential to the proper understanding of its various qualities and kinds and the different stages of its manufacture.

Ordinary glass has many valuable properties which make it of great importance in the arts and manufactures. Among these may be mentioned the fact that it can be made to take any shape with ease. It resists the action of all ordinary acids, and hence is of the utmost value to the chemist and the chemical manufacturer. Hydrofluoric acid alone attacks it, by combining readily with its silica and so dissolving it. For this reason, hydrofluoric acid is used in etching on glass. Again, glass is cheap, being literally made from the dust of the earth; it is transparent, and so can be used in buildings, transmitting light whilst protecting from the inclemency of the weather. Its transparency, too, combined with its high refractive power, make it of inestimable value in the manufacture of optical instruments. It is this high refractive power, too, which gives to cut glass its beautiful lustre and sparkle, and one aim of the glass-founder is to increase this refractive power and so enhance the brilliancy of his product. If glass could be made which would refract light to the same extent as the diamond does, it would exhibit the same "fire" as the king of gems. It is hard and close in texture, and so is capable of taking a high polish. Its great drawback is its brittleness, but this can be reduced to a great extent by immersing it, whilst red-hot, in a hot bath of paraffin oil, wax, or resin. A tumbler of glass so "tempered" may be dropped on the floor without breaking.

It may be added, as a matter of common interest, that this brittleness is largely a result of the fact that glass is an extremely bad conductor of heat. Because of this, a mass of molten glass, when cooling, becomes set on its outside surface long before the interior has become solidified; hence the solid exterior prevents the molecules of the interior portion from contracting. As a result, a condition of strain is established, the interior molecules tending to contract, while the exterior tends in the opposite direction; consequently a very slight blow is enough to cause a fracture.

As regards quality, the chief kinds are crown glass, flint glass, plate glass, bottle glass, and crystal glass, and the differences in composition may be conveniently expressed in the form of a table:--

Cheapest of all glass is bottle glass, where the base is mainly lime. The metal used for medicine bottles contains more potash and is purer and clearer. The use of potash and soda makes the glass more easily fusible; alumina has the opposite effect; lime makes a harder glass; lead gives lustre, increases fusibility, and heightens the refractive power. Hence in glass which is to be cut and polished the employment of lead in sufficient quantity is a factor of the highest importance. This is a point to be specially noted in connection with English glass. Lead--chiefly the oxides known as litharge and minium--in small quantities has long been employed, the introduction of the metal serving as a flux, but lead glass was generally avoided as being too brittle. Merret, writing in 1662, remarks that could this glass be made as tough as crystalline, "it would far surpass it in the glory and beauty of its colours." It will be noted that the two kinds of glass in which lead is used in quantity are flint glass and crystal. The larger the amount of lead the greater the beauty and brilliancy of the product, a result due, as previously intimated, to the increase in refractive power that is brought about by its addition.

Flint glass derives its name from the fact that in England the silica, which is the main constituent of all glass, was procured from flints which were calcined and pulverised. Being highly refractive it is extensively employed in the manufacture of optical instruments--telescopes, microscopes, etc. Quartz and fine sand are now used in the place of flints. The glass is soft, and hence easily scratched and dulled. It is essential that only the purest materials be employed, and special furnaces and pots are needed. Flint glass was known in quite early times. It was probably discovered by accident that certain stones were fusible, for fossil glass is found in many places where great fires have been. Volcanic glass--obsidian--is a well-known substance, while there exist in Scotland ancient forts, the stones of which have been fused together by the action of heat. The Venetians used quartz in preference to sand, since the latter was liable to contain impurities, and the Venetian craftsmen who settled in England were accustomed to ensure the purity of their silica by calcining flints. Crown glass is the finest sort of ordinary window glass. Plate glass is the superior kind of thick glass used for mirrors, shop windows, etc. It will be noted that it is the only kind of glass which contains soda.

The ordinary pot is an inverted section of a cone, the apex being closed. For flint glass a covered pot is essential, the form ordinarily adopted being a bell-jar closed at the bottom and with an arched opening at the top. Each pot holds from ten to fifteen cwt. of the "batch." When full, the pots are placed in specially constructed furnaces, holding from five to fifteen pots, and capable of producing a temperature of from 10,000? to 12,000? F. The details of the firing are intricate and interesting but have no direct bearing on our purpose; their object is to produce complete fusion, to allow for the removal of all impurities, and to ensure the homogeneity of the product.

The final stage with which we are concerned is that of blowing, since all table glass, worthy of being called table glass, is blown. In other words, every decanter, vase, tumbler, and wine glass of the better sort begins its existence as a bubble of molten glass at the end of an iron tube--the glass-blower's tube--and owes its form to the delicate touches of simple tools held in a skilful hand and guided by a trained eye. It is this fact which gives glass its individuality. There is no hard-and-fast rigour of line, no mechanical uniformity of shape, such as is associated with machine-made goods; even the simplest wine glass is an individual thing, which the taste of the craftsman has endowed with artistic distinction whilst retaining its simplicity of form.

It is a matter for regret that the glass-blower's art is seriously threatened in these latter days of hurry and competition. The demand for cheap glass has led to the introduction of blowing machines, in which the bubble of molten glass is taken up by one of many blowing tubes, and placed inside a mould, air being driven by machinery through the other end of the tube and inflating the bubble until it touches the sides of its mould. The budding craftsman thus loses the practice of blowing these simpler forms, and as he is now forbidden to work at the furnaces until he is over fourteen, he often fails to acquire that lightness and dexterity of hand which are the mark of the first-rate craftsman, and which can be most readily gained in early life. There is, of course, no reason why common vessels should not be produced in this way, and tumblers, decanters, and lamp glasses are so manufactured in large numbers.

The art of glass-cutting in Europe dates back to the middle of the sixteenth century, when it was extensively practised on the Continent, particularly in Bohemia. The earliest examples were probably imitated from the rock-crystal cups of ancient Greece and Rome. There is no doubt that in both these countries the art was practised for the ornamentation of the famous crystallinum, whilst some vessels were undoubtedly cut out of the solid block.

The discovery of flint glass revolutionised the art of glass ornamentation. The strong refractive powers of the new glass made it specially suitable for cutting, which brought out a wonderful fire and sparkle that even the finest art of Bohemia and Venice had not been able to attain. At first, of course, the English craftsmen were far inferior in artistic merit--both as regards design and execution--to those of Bohemia; but the superior brilliancy of the metal atoned to a great extent for the deficiencies of the workmen, and Early English cut wine glasses and punch glasses are by no means to be despised. "L'article Anglais solide et confortable, mais sans ?l?gance," spread the fame and fashion of English glass throughout the Continent and, incidentally, over the world.

The earliest examples of English cut glass are perhaps the thistle-shaped glasses, originally fashioned in Bohemia but adopted by Scotland as representing the national emblem. Apart from these, the ogee-shape was most commonly selected as being more amenable to artistic treatment than the bell.

The stem is usually knopped and cut into facets, and is invariably hexagonal in shape. The cutting is continued beyond the top of the stem on to the lower part of the bowl, so as to give a kind of finish. Sometimes, indeed, the cutting is made to include the bowl in a scheme of decoration, and the rim is engraved with conventional designs, wreaths of flowers, etc. Towards the end of the eighteenth century the facets became long flutes.

The process technically known as glass-cutting is essentially one of grinding and polishing. The grinding is done by a wheel, made of cast-iron, and made to rotate rapidly by a continuous band passing over a revolving shaft. Above the wheel is a receptacle containing sand and water, which can be fed on to the wheel as desired. Smoothing is done by a sandstone wheel, similarly mounted, and polishing by a wooden one fed with putty powder. The craftsman holds his piece in the hand, pressing it against the rotating wheel.

Engraving is really very fine grinding, done usually with a copper wheel or, rather, disk, whilst etching is done by coating the glass with wax, or some similar protective substance, scratching the pattern through the wax and then subjecting the piece to the action of hydrofluoric acid.

It need hardly be said that only the best kinds of glass are cut by a method which makes such demands on the time and skill of the workman; the cheaper kinds of glass are all moulded or "pressed." Pressed glass is also essentially English, no other kind, save flint glass, being suitable for treatment in this way. It is, in the first place, essential to obtain a metal which has a low melting point, and one which does not shrink in solidifying, as that would draw it away from the sides of the mould, and so effectively spoil the design. The low melting point of the metal enables the product to be "fire polished." In this process it is reheated to a point sufficient to melt a thin surface layer, and so remove any roughness due to the process of moulding, and leave a smooth bright surface. The art of pressing glass has been brought to a high degree of perfection, elaborate decorations being produced with ease. The cost of the process, too, has in recent years been lessened by the use of baryta and lime, in the place of lead and potash, and in this way the output has been greatly cheapened, while baryta glass, if inferior in sparkle to lead glass, is yet far more brilliant than ordinary glass.

The problem how to distinguish real old glass from modern imitations is one that besets the collector at every stage of his progress. A few specimens supply their own testimony in the shape of a date, but it is by no means impossible to engrave a date on a piece of specious-looking real antiquity, and so give it a fictitious value, by making it appear "the thing which it is not."

As to the character of the glasses themselves, shape alone is no criterion of age. Apart from the possibility of deliberate imitation, it does not follow that because a piece is ponderous, clumsy in appearance and, to a modern eye, unduly capacious, that it is necessarily an early piece. Right from the beginning of glass manufacture in England, two qualities, at least, were undoubtedly manufactured; the better to ornament the tables of the great, and the poorer for service in kitchen and tavern. Whereas articles of the former were as dainty and artistic as the skill of the craftsman would allow, the latter were roughly made and deliberately ponderous to bear the rougher usage to which they were subjected. As the same practice continues up to the present day, it follows that there is in existence a considerable quantity of common glass with all the attributes, as far as shape and clumsiness of form are concerned, of that of an earlier period.

Possibly the appearance of the metal and the style of workmanship are as reliable guides as any others. The metal of the earliest glasses was by no means perfect. Instead of the beautiful clarity and perfect transparency we are accustomed to associate with glass, there is often a streakiness or cloudiness visible in the material, together with numerous bubbles and flaws. If the striations are horizontal, the glass is of an earlier type than if they are perpendicular. The sides of the bowl are often irregular, and the stems are often clumsy, uneven, badly balanced, and altogether disproportionate in point of size to an eye accustomed to the slenderer style of modern glassware. An important point is the junction between the bowl and the stem. For some extraordinary reason, the welding of the two seems to have given the ancient glass-blowers considerable trouble, and the join is often too clearly perceptible. Hence the collector who comes across an apparently ancient piece bearing evident signs of clumsy joining should give it more than casual attention. Sometimes, to obviate the difficulty, the base of the bowl was made into a kind of knop, and at other times the junction was hidden by an irregular band--the prototype of the collar which so often appeared in glasses of a somewhat later period.

The bubble which appears in many stems was probably the outcome of accident and possibly of an attempt to imitate the hollow stems of Venetian glass. It is worthy of note that whilst the bubble is almost invariably present in the baser forms of early eighteenth-century glass, it is frequently absent from the finer varieties. Another point of difference is that the better specimens rarely have the folded foot, which is invariably present in the coarser makes, the turning under of the rim, whilst plastic, to make a kind of welt, being an obvious precaution against the rougher usage to which they were inevitably subjected. Sometimes the feet were domed, but these were difficult to make and the numbers were restricted. In some specimens ridges or ribs are formed on the upper and lower sides of the foot.

The earliest glasses were devoid of any attempt at decorative engraving, and these plain glasses may also be roughly classified by noting whether the glass rests on the flat of the foot or on the rim only. The former are of the earlier type.

Among the tests which the collector might apply are the following:--

Note whether the glass rings clear and sweet in tone. In twisted stems, note whether the stem twists to the left or the right. The genuine glasses have almost invariably stems twisted to the left. In opaque-twisted stems, note particularly the colour of the spiral. In the forgeries the opacity is less definite, the twist often having a kind of translucent look.

Genuine old glass often has a cloudy tinge with frequently a tone of steely blue. Forgeries may show a greenish tint.

In old glass the centre of the base, where the piece was, after being finished, knocked off the pontil, is generally left rough; in the imitations it is generally ground smooth.

The foot of a genuine old glass is never quite flat, there is always a slope--sometimes a very pronounced one--from the centre to the edge. The modern imitation, usually made abroad, often has a perfectly flat foot.

The edge of the bowl in a genuine old glass is always rounded, never left hard and sharp.

EARLY ENGLISH GLASS

The early history of glass manufacture in Britain is decidedly obscure. The earliest specimens of the art extant are certain coloured beads, known as "aggry" beads. Many of these exist, some probably of Phoenician origin, others dating from the Roman occupation of Britain--being made either by the Romans themselves or by a British craftsman under Roman tuition.

There can be little doubt that the Romans did introduce the making of glass into this country, for glass was an indispensable adjunct to Roman life. Moreover, it was the custom for the conqueror to train the conquered in his own arts, and the Roman handicrafts followed the Roman Eagle. In any case, the art of glass-making had, according to Pliny, extended to Gaul, and there seems no reason why it should not also have crossed the Channel. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that it did.

There is, however, evidence that glass-making was carried on in Anglo-Saxon times--many specimens of Anglo-Saxon bead-work, etc., having been found in barrows, tumuli, and burying-places in general. They are composed of an opaque, vitreous paste--which in places approaches translucency. Unfortunately, the materials employed were impure, and the material has consequently disintegrated with time, making it a matter of exceeding difficulty to determine its original texture and appearance. The decoration, both as regards colouring and design, is primitive. The colour is crude, and the patterns consist mainly of simple geometrical figures, circles, chevrons, stripes, spirals, and so forth.

Possibly after the Roman withdrawal in 410, the art fell into abeyance, as did much of the civilisation imposed by the Romans, reviving again when the various Anglo-Saxon units began to develop a civilisation of their own, and to pass through various confederacies into a single kingdom.

Bede writes that in 675 "Benedict Biscop" sent for glass-workers from France to glaze the windows of the church at Wearmouth, and that they taught the English their handicraft, making not only windows but vessels.

The art must, however, have survived in certain places, for numbers of vessels which can be referred, on the authority of illuminated MSS., etc., to Saxon times, are in existence. Such specimens include vases, ornamented with ribs and applied lobes. These are probably of German origin, and were introduced into Britain by the Saxon invaders. Trumpet-shaped cups, ribbed, or stringed, or fluted. These have no base on which to stand, and are probably of English manufacture, dating from the latter half of the sixth century, The third type is the "palm" cup, shaped so as to be conveniently held in the palm of the hand, having no bottom on which to stand; and bowls of various shapes. The palm cups and bowls belong to the eighth and ninth centuries, and later. It should be remembered that the dates given can only be roughly approximate, and that the various periods fuse one into the other, so that there is no definite line of demarcation. Moreover, there is no definite proof that glass vessels were made in England during Saxon times, save only such

statements as that of the Venerable Bede previously referred to. Only, while similar vessels are found both in France and Germany, it is claimed that a greater number and a greater variety are found in England, the inference being that they were made in this country.

So remarkable is the paucity of evidence and so absolute the dearth of authenticated examples in these Dark Ages of glass manufacture, that it has often been asserted that no glass vessels were made in England before the fifteenth century. Glass vessels were, of course, known and used, but these were probably, in the main at any rate, imported from Venice and the East. On the other hand, it is known that before the thirteenth century window glass--blown glass too, and not cast glass--was made, and very successfully. Indeed, old English coloured glass was particularly fine, and this being so, it is not easy to understand why the same art should not be applied to vessels.

There was, undoubtedly, produced during this period considerable quantities of window glass, much of it highly decorated, and exhibiting characteristics peculiar to the period to which it belongs, so that experts find little difficulty in distinguishing between the vigour of the thirteenth and the brilliancy of the fourteenth century. It would appear, too, that the home product won an increasing appreciation from the architects who employed it in their buildings; for whereas in 1547 the contractor binds himself not to use it for the windows of the Beauchamp Chapel at Warwick, in 1485 it is mentioned in such a way as to imply that it was either better or dearer, or both, than "Dutch, Venice, or Normandy glass."

In the sixteenth century, however, the fashion of using vessels of glass became almost universal in the west of Europe. Most of these came from Venice, and, spurred by the desire of establishing so lucrative an industry at home, the rulers of various countries--notably France, Holland, and England--sought to induce Venetian craftsmen to settle in them.

The glass-workers of Murano--the great glass-making centre in Venice--were, however, a close corporation, the workmen being stringently bound, under penalty of death, not to carry their trade secrets to any other country or to teach them to foreigners. In spite of this, eight Muranese glass-workers were induced to settle in England in 1549, and built their furnace in the monastery of the Crutched Friars--one of the minor orders. They derived their name Crutched from the ornamental cross which adorned their habits. Of the eight, seven returned to Venice in 1551, having previously petitioned the Council of Ten to remit the penalties against them. It is a reasonable assumption--but still only an assumption--that during their stay they did much to further the art of glass-making, although they merely produced glass and sedulously refrained from teaching their "mystery."

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