The Mentor · Glass and Glass-Making · Page 7

FRENCH ENAMELED GOBLET
Henry II period (1333-1379) This was called a marriage cup.
The lady has a heart in her
hand. On the opposite side is
a gentlemen in the costume of
Henry II's reign, offering a
flower to the lady.

Bohemian Glass
Bohemian glass is a "forest glass" that dates from the sixteenth century, when the Emperor Rudolph II brought Italian engravers of rock-crystal to take charge of the glass-works he had established in Prague to imitate rock-crystal. Up to about 1590 the Bohemians had copied Venetian models, which they decorated with colored enamels. After they began to cut glass, they needed heavier and thicker forms. The first Bohemian glass was white, was cut in facets and engraved with pictures, coats-of-arms and emblems. At a later period colored glass was made.
The famous "ruby glass" was brought to perfection by Johann Kunckel, A Silesian chemist, employed at the Brandenburg glass-works at Potsdam.

Venetian Glass Vase (In the Metropolitan Museum)

VENETIAN GLASS VASE
In the Metro. Museum

It was said that Kunckel obtained his fine ruby by the use of gold. The shapes of his pieces-- ewers, beakers and large covered cups-- are simple. He also made a glass of deep emerald tint.
    By 1730, Bohemian glass had completely supplanted Murano. It enjoyed enormous popularity for about fifty years, until it was, in its turn, driven out of fashion by the English flint glass.
German Glass
    While the Venetians were perfecting their "cristallo," the Germans of the Rhine district were developing their ancient "green glass." Rhenish glass varies from greenish blue to pale bottle green, and from dark violet blue to olive green. It is never decorated, nor engraved. "Prunts" are its characteristic ornaments. These knobby projections on the stem are shaped like thorns, mulberries, or grapes.
    The typical production is the roemer. This has a tulip-shaped bowl, a hollow cylindrical stem studded with mulberry "prunts," and a hollow, conical foot formed by coiling a rope of glass around a core of wood. The metal is thick and heavy and full of bubbles and defects. The great cylindrical glasses, sometimes twenty inches high, ornamented with paintings, are called salutation glasses. The tall funnel-shaped glasses and the "cabbage-stalk" glasses are all classed under the name "brimmers."

Glass in the Low Countries
    The museums of Holland and Belgium contain enormous collections of splendid native work. Huge glasses, with bowls shaped like tulips and