For centuries man has liked to surround himself with beautiful things, sometimes created by nature, sometimes by his own hand. One of them is glass. Today, we forget about its fragile and light appearance when used to line skyscraper facades. We use the same thing on the car windshield as on the facets of a fantasy amethyst. Let us now admire glass in its domestic function, in our home, on our table, in our perfume bottle.
Its composition is silica and soda. The rest is created by inspiration and art. In ancient times, from this paste colored stones were formed that alternated with precious metals in jewelry from peoples such as Egypt and Phenicia.
Also the contemporary France of the great dressmaker Coco Chanel, who made fancy pearls fashionable, used cut crystal necklaces. This makes us think that women's fashions of all time have liked crystal stones.
In Roman times it was so admired that when the spoils of subjugated peoples were brought in, glass and gold were displayed alike. Petronius, the writer of Nero's Rome and the arbiter of elegance, boasted of his crystals. Legend has it that Nero ordered the execution of someone who invented a kind of unbreakable glass, since fragility was one of its most admirable characteristics.
The blown glass does not appear until fifty years before Christ, coming from Sidon, Phenicia, which would later become part of the Roman Empire. Since Rome loved the product, she gave in to everyone who knew about its manufacture.
At first the glass had a greenish color (that of bottle glass), but already in the 16th century it was possible, in Venice, to neutralize that color caused by iron with manganese oxide, resulting in clear and transparent glass.
Then the colored crystals continued adding some mineral to the composition: copper, to achieve the turquoise color; cobalt, for dark blue or royal blue; and manganese for amethyst. Only the most desired color was missing: red, perhaps the most difficult to create. In the end, Johanan Kunckel succeeded, adding gold. The secret was to cook it twice until it turned ruby.
Another advance was the opaque glass with an opaline appearance, better known by Bristol in England. In the 18th century, he gave us black glass and new textures similar to marble.
Today we can acquire crystals as a collector of antique pieces, or simply selecting ornaments for our home, such as tableware, ashtrays and even leaded glass windows for our bathroom or staircase.
For the collector, we recommend an infinity of antique crystals, such as Arabic or Islam, or perhaps cobalt blue crystals with Jewish or Christian scenes and edged in white and gold, known by Fondi d'oro from the Renaissance period. Many of these pieces are exhibited in museums in Paris and Dresden. Other collectors might admire the windows of the cathedrals of Cologne and Our Lady of Paris. They are in fashion again and it is nice to see leaded glass panes resurfacing showing swans bathroom windows with swans and water lilies.
Other crystals that attract the collector are hand-decorated German glasses and Dutch bottles with rounded shoulders and paintings of ships, fire-enameled mills.
But of all the crystals, perhaps the one of most interest is that of Venice, with all its varieties. Many factories in the world imitate a style commonly known as "Murano glass", from the islands that brought it to commerce.
Venice gave many varieties of this art. The lace-shaped decoration was called Vetro di Trina. Another was an interior design made up of small glass filaments known to Latticino, and the flasks used as paperweights that display a mass of tiny flowers inside. This work is called mille fiori.
In Venice, there is a glass house on the banks of the Grand Canal that for generations has stocked hand-decorated china to the best tables in the world. It is so well organized that the registration of its customers allows years later to replace pieces of dinnerware with the same designs and colors. It is in these pieces that you can see the difference between a glass painted by hand or decorated with stickers. Each cup with the same theme can never repeat with exact precision the movements of the figures. This is the best way to recognize that they have been stamped in series.
Venetian glassware is as important as Baccarat in France or Tiffany in the United States.
Among other dishes of singular beauty are those of Bohemia, with carved designs of deer or castles. Bohemian glass has a special hardness, since it is added with plaster and lemon. Also England and Ireland gave their famous crystals hardness by adding lead oxide to the mixture.
But perhaps we are all fascinated by bringing France's hallmark of elegance, Baccarat crystal, to our table. The trademark is a bottle with a glass on one side and a glass on the other.
Every well-stocked household had, in addition to crockery, a set of colored cut crystal goblets for Rhine wine. The Val St Lambert factory was famous for these glasses, which also carved a variety of glasses to serve creams and cordials after meals.
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