Venetian glass

“ The art of enamelling on glass passed over to Venice in the fifteenth century, perhaps earlier, and there in the next century the manufacture of the famous cristallo was finally achieved, and complete mastery was obtained in the working of this pure white glass. A fresh start was now given to the industry in the north by means of the Venetian glass-workers, who were sought for in every country to teach their new methods. ”

“ At the end of the thirteenth century a guild of glass-workers{5} was formed. These sequestered their craft upon the island of Murano, and there cultivated it with an increasing skill that in a brief space made Venetian glass the marvel of the civilised world. The peculiar merits of the Venetian product were grace of form and lightness of execution. Many of the vessels are surpassingly thin. The quality of the metal, however, leaves something to be desired. ”

“ THE FRENCH GLASS OF THE RENAISSANCE In the history of European glass the culminating point is perhaps reached in the Venetian glass of the first half of the sixteenth century—I am speaking, of course, from the artistic point of view. For a century or more after this time our history is concerned with little else than the spread of the Italian methods of manufacture and decoration over the west of Europe. After the middle of the seventeenth century the interest becomes more and more centred in the technical and economical improvements in the manufacture. ”

“ In many of them there are always for sale little models of gondolas in all kinds of material, from silver to leather and wood. In others photographs are sold, the photos of Venice being noted as remarkably good; and they are printed, I think, on rather thicker paper than elsewhere, but they are slightly dearer than those in the South of Italy. There are also shops in which the famous Venetian glass is sold. The manufacture of glass is a great trade in Venice, and one sees among them very beautiful samples of the work, embracing articles in iridescent glass ”

“ Before leaving the Italian sixteenth-century work we must notice the mirrors, with their elaborately carved frames of Venetian design and manufacture. In this century Venice was renowned for the making of glass, for which it is still famous, and certain privileges were granted by the State exclusively to Venetian manufacturers of looking-glasses. Two Murano glass makers named Andrea and Dominico, who were the inventors, were granted in the year 1507 the sole privilege of making “mirrors of crystal glass” for a term of twenty years. ”

“ Failing to obey his nearest of kin shall be imprisoned. If he still persists in remaining abroad and plying his art an emissary shall be charged to kill him.'
"In this way the secrets of glass-making were kept in Venice and the Republic soon became famous and prosperous. As the reputation of the Venetian glass-makers spread an immense trade was established. My grandfather has often told me of the great numbers of beads which were sent everywhere throughout the East—sometimes to Africa and even to India. In 1764 twenty-two great furnaces were kept busy supplying the beads that were demanded. ”

“ Millefiori, or mosaic glass, in imitation of the old Roman process. (6) Reticulated, filigree, or lace glass. The varieties contain fine threads of glass, generally coloured, but sometimes milk-white, included in their substance. The lightness and strength of the Venetian glass are due to its not containing lead like our modern flint glass. Venetian mirrors were for a long period widely celebrated. The oldest example of the German drinking-cups, ornamented with paintings in enamel, is of the date of 1553. The designs are commonly armorial bearings. ”

“ If the Venetians of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were complete masters of the art of enamel, how comes it that no other example of the art at all comparable in excellence to this glass has come down to us? No one, I think, now believes in the Venetian origin of the hanap de voirre en façon de Damas, of the glass vessels de l’ouvrage de Damas, or peintes à la morisque mentioned in the inventories of the French princes of the fourteenth century. ”

“ Few materials lend themselves more readily to the skill of the craftsman than glass. The fluid or viscous condition of the "metal" as it comes from the "pot," the way in which it is shaped by the breath of the craftsman, and by his skill in making use of centrifugal force, these and many other things too numerous to mention are all manifested in the triumphs of the Venetian glass-blower. At the first glance we see that the vessel he has made is of a material once liquid. ”

“ Latticinio, Lattisuol, or Lattimo are names given by the Venetians to a milk-white opaque glass. White 204 enamels were freely used in the fifteenth century, but the earliest known specimen of Venetian glass, the whole body of which is rendered opaque by the presence of oxide of tin (calcina di stagno) —the vetro bianco di smalto of the early writers [151] —can hardly be older than the beginning of the next century. ”

“ Then we obtained a quantity of photographs of the Italian master-pieces, chiefly from the works of Titian and the Venetian school, though we included also the Madonnas of Raphael. Miss Sartoris found an Italian curiosity-shop, which was a perfect treasure-trove, for here we secured, on commission, a quantity of Venetian glass beads, the beautiful blossomed variety, with tiny smelling-bottles of the same material, together with sleeve-buttons of Florentine mosaic, ornaments of pink Neapolitan coral, and broken pieces of antique Roman marbles, all of which we sold at immense profit. ”

“ The manufacture of glass at Murano, of which the origin is so remote, may be said to form the only branch of industry which still flourishes in the lagoons. Muranese beads are exported to all quarters in vast quantities, and the process of making them is one of the things that strangers feel they must see when visiting Venice. The famous mirrors are no longer made, and the glass has deteriorated in quality, as well as in the beauty of the thousand curious forms it took. The test of the old glass, which is now imitated a great deal, is its extreme lightness. ”

“ Yes, the great artists were born, and from that time pictures on canvas instead of pictures of glass decorated the churches. But the mosaic makers did an important service to art, for it was they who indirectly gave to the world the idea of making stained-glass windows. And in Venice those who ceased to make mosaics made instead the beautiful Venetian glass of which Giusippe has told us. ”

“ If I trespass beyond my limits to give this rapid summary of what is known of the colours of mediæval window-glass, it is because much of it will be found applicable to the contemporary Oriental enamelled ware and to the later Venetian glass.
In view of the high technical skill thus shown in the colouring and working of the material, nothing is more remarkable than the almost total absence from our collections of any glass, using that word in the narrower sense, that we can classify as Gothic. We know, indeed, that during these centuries much glass was made in France, 134 Germany, and Italy. ”

“ This result they obtained not only by care in the selection of their materials, especially in the source of the silica, but also by an early mastery of the use of manganese, ‘the glass-maker’s soap.’ The Venetian glass excelled again in its working qualities, in the extreme ductility which it maintained through a wide range of temperature. This property was in a measure due to the large quantity of alkali which entered into its composition. On the other hand, this excess of soda has led at times to a rapid tarnishing of the surface, visible above all in our damp climate. ”

“ The walls were hung with rich tapestries representing the Triumph of Beauty. A large press, inlaid with agate and lapis-lazuli, filled one corner, and facing the window stood a curiously wrought cabinet with lacquer panels of powdered and mosaiced gold, on which were placed some delicate goblets of Venetian glass, and a cup of dark-veined onyx. ”

“ For there is this difference between the English and Venetian workman, that the former thinks only of accurately matching his patterns, and getting his curves perfectly true and his edges perfectly sharp, and becomes a mere machine for rounding curves and sharpening edges, while the old Venetian cared not a whit whether his edges were sharp or not, but he invented a new design for every glass that he made, and never moulded a handle or a lip without a new fancy in it. ”

“ The efforts made in France, Germany and England, in the 17th and 18th centuries, to improve the manufacture of glass in those countries had a very injurious effect on the industry of Murano. The invention of colourless Bohemian glass brought in its train the practice of cutting glass, a method of ornamentation for which Venetian glass, from its thinness, was ill adapted. One remarkable man, Giuseppe Briati, exerted himself, with much success, both in working in the old Venetian method and also in imitating the new fashions invented in Bohemia. ”

“ We have here a class of imperfection of quite a different nature from the tendency to collapse so often seen in large pieces of Saracenic glass. In the case of the Venetian glass the unevenness appears to arise from the imperfect fluidity of the metal when in the hands of the blower. ”

“ AN ACTOR IN THE CHINESE THEATER.
The Venetian Glass-works were just opposite, and as the charge was only ten cents, the party went there also. The process was much the same; but the men were foreigners, and therefore seemed more picturesque. Their work was more interesting to watch. One man was making a sort of spray of glass, and affixed leaves, pressed them with molding-pincers, and twisted them so quickly that it needed close watching for the boys to comprehend the work. ”

“ Often, of course, millefiori work was carried to the extreme of becoming less a thing of beauty than a tour de force. However, the collector will find interest in all pieces of the sort, and their range was enormous. The glass of Venice was famous for its extraordinary lightness and this added to its vogue. The Chaplain of Louis XIV, Réné François, amusingly warned the world that Murano was filling Europe with its fantasies of glass; but rare enough are the early specimens of Venetian manufacture, more precious now than their weight in gold. ”

“ This barilla was made from the famous soda plant, the Salsola sativa, which, we are told, was grown from seed in various parts of the province of Murcia, and exported from the adjacent port of Alicante. So again the quartz pebbles from the bed of the Ticino, so highly prized by the early Venetian glass-makers, were early replaced by the pure white sand of Étaples. [168]
There is, however, in this connection, one point worth notice. It is impossible to prepare a workable glass from quartz and alkali alone; the presence of a certain 228 quantity of lime is essential. ”

“ For the earlier periods the negative evidence is of some importance. There is no reference of any kind to the manufacture of glass before the thirteenth century, [129] although by this time a great part of the interior of St. Mark’s had been covered with mosaics. Like the enamels of the Pala D’Oro, we may probably look upon the earlier Venetian mosaics as of Byzantine origin. After the capture of Constantinople in 1204, the Venetians obtained a firmer grip upon the trade of the Eastern Mediterranean. Their factories had long been established on the coast of Syria. ‘When Sidon fell,’ says Mr. ”

“ We have seen how little can be learned from the works of contemporary Venetian painters, of the famous glass of Murano (p. 202) . But in the north it is quite otherwise; not only in the pictures of the still-life painters, but in genre scenes, and sometimes even in paintings of a devotional character, we meet with carefully drawn examples of glass. It thus happens that the works of the Flemish and Dutch painters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries throw a great deal of light upon the kinds of glass to be found both in the village alehouses and on the buffets of the wealthy. ”

“ In other cases the surface of a piece of clear white glass will become gradually filled with a series of minute intersecting fissures, which in time may penetrate the whole mass. When this change has been fully developed we get a true crackle-glass, not to be confounded with the frosted glass of Venice mentioned in Chapter XIII. This fissuring of the glass-mass in its various stages may be traced in many of the specimens of Venetian, Netherlandish, and English glass at South Kensington. When fully developed the effect is at times very beautiful. ”

“ For a time, no doubt, the Venetian mirrors held their own, but before the end of the seventeenth century the French, thanks to the energy of Colbert, had not only learned all their secrets, but by an entirely new method—namely by a process of casting or founding, and subsequent rolling and polishing of the glass plates—were able to meet the demand for the large mirrors that were now regarded as indispensable in a Louis-Quatorze salon. ”

“ Before the fall of the old Venetian republic, the glassmakers constituted a close corporation with exclusive privileges. The trade was thrown open in 1806 under the government of the then kingdom of Italy, and a period of keen competition and low prices ensued, until the year 1848, when the conditions of the trade were regulated by an agreement among the manufacturers. The number of persons employed in glass-making at Murano and Venice is 5000, of whom one-third are men, and two-thirds women and children. The highest wages are, for men, 12 francs ”