Venetian Glass

ヴェネツィアン・グラス / 13th century– / Style / Vessel and Craft Techniques

The glass made on Murano in Venice, and the forms that its material dictates. Soda glass is light and highly malleable, so shapes are drawn, twisted and applied while hot rather than cut away when cold. Opaque white lattimo and threaded filigrana run inside the body, while gilding and enamel painting sit on the surface.

Walls stay thin, and stems and handles arrive as drawn out lines / Threads of opaque white glass run through the clear body as nets and stripes / Cut engraving is rare, and the ornament instead sits on the surface as gilding and enamel / Small discs sliced from patterned canes are scattered across the wall

Venetian Glass — Betrothal cup with enamel and gilding, Venice, 1475–1500 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 UK — Betrothal cup with enamel and gilding, Venice, 1475–1500 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 UK ／ Pilgrim flask in lattimo (opaque white glass), Venice, c. 1525, Walters Art Museum — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain ／ Millefiori glass sphere, Venice, c. 1500–1600, Rijksmuseum — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

Venetian Glass — Pilgrim flask in lattimo (opaque white glass), Venice, c. 1525, Walters Art Museum — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — Betrothal cup with enamel and gilding, Venice, 1475–1500 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 UK ／ Pilgrim flask in lattimo (opaque white glass), Venice, c. 1525, Walters Art Museum — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain ／ Millefiori glass sphere, Venice, c. 1500–1600, Rijksmuseum — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

Dictionary entry

Best used for: Recreating the look of white threads running inside a clear body for glassware or bottle packaging · Bringing the softness of a form that was stretched rather than carved into product shapes or 3D work
Type: Run lettering around the rim as a thin gilded stroke. Never cut the letters into the surface.
Composition: Keep the vessel axially symmetrical while stretching only stem and rim outward. Ornament travels as a band, not as a filled panel.
Material: Form thin, assuming a glass that is light and stretches. Bed white threads into the clear body and finish the outside with gold and opaque enamel.
Caution: Adding the weight and cut facets of lead glass removes the reason the shape was stretched in the first place.
Further study: how the workable temperature range differs between soda glass and lead glass / what lattimo, filigrana and millefiori each refer to / telling Altare glass and façon de Venise made outside Murano apart

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