FRENCH AND ITALIAN GLASS OF THE 17th CENTURY
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funnels, and immense covered cups and cups mounted in gold-- the pride of
guilds and corporations-- appear in the pictures of Rembrandt, Frans Hals,
Jan Steen, Terburg, and others.
After the taste for Venetian glass had passed, the
Dutch and Flemish took up engraving on glass. The Dutch became adepts.
Very famous were three sisters, Anna, Gertrude, and Maria Visscher,
of Amsterdam. They were well placed in life and excelled in all the
accomplishments of their day, "including dancing and engraving exquisitely
with the diamond."
The example here given from the Ryks Museum,
Amsterdam, is a pale sea-green goblet decorated by Anna Visscher, with a
wild rose, a marigold, a carnation, a dragon fly, an inscription, her
name and the date, 1621.
In the late eighteenth century the Dutch excelled
in a kind of dotted work (like stipple engraving) that produced the effect
of a breath on a pane. They also copied intricate engravings on their
dishes, bowls and goblets. Museums also show with pride all kinds of
"trick glasses" that suited the heavy merriment
of such people
OLD ENGLISH ALE GLASSES
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as we see depicted by Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Rubens,
Van der Helst and Teniers. The Flemings and Dutch were also affected by
Bohemian and English influences in the eighteenth century.
English Glass
English glass took a new turn in the days of
William and Mary. The English had just invented flint glass, or "lead
glass," which was beautifully clear and hard, with the most wonderful
dispersive power of any glass known. This quality was soon seized upon
by the cutters, who enriched the surface by many patterns, not only
interesting in themselves, but well adapted to scattering the rays of
light that passed through the glass and breaking them into prismatic
colors. Perhaps the cutters may have begun by
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