Sep
15
Antique Blown Glass Jugs
September 15, 2009 |
The earlier Roman mould-blown glass
was inclined to be severe in form, straight-
sided and prismatic in feeling, and usually
coloured. The jar illustrated has been
blown into a simple four-sided mould and
is a familiar shape on any Roman excava-
tion. It is part of a class of plain mould-
blown jars, jugs and short-necked bottles,
usually in thick bluish-green or greenish
glass, found in cylindrical, square or poly-
gonal section. They have characteristic
bold, angular handles, often longitudinally
ribbed, which are sometimes called ‘celery’
or ’strap’ handles. A six-sided example
was found at Breny in Northern Prance,
containing a coin of the Roman Emperor
Domitian (51 96 A.D.), and the ware
would appear to date from this and the
next centuries. It is thought that the larger
jars were used as cinerary urns. Bottles of
similar shape, but with longer necks, often
have moulded inscriptions on the base,
sometimes with a figure of Mercury or
Victory or an animal; these probably date
from the 2nd or 3rd century A.D.
A group of hexagonal and octagonal
mould-blown glass vessels, decorated w th
Jewish and Christian symbols, has been
dated between 578 and 636 A.D, and the
vessels were probably all made at the same
workshop in Jerusalem. They come in two
characteristic forms, a bottle and a jug.
The bottle form occasionally has handles,
and the jugs are characterised by an
elongated cylindrical neck, an outward-
sloping rim, a pinched mouth, and a
handle, sometimes folded, reaching from
the shoulder to the rim; the handles are
usually constructed from a tube of glass.
Brown is the most common colour, though
blue, green and purple are known. The
moulded decoration is in intaglio. The
moulds were probably made from metal,
with the pattern hammered into thtir
outer surface and appearing in relief on the
inner surface of the mould, thus produci tg
an intaglio pattern on the surface of tie
glass vessel. The vessels were probably
used to carry holy oil.
sprinki er bottle in green glass, pattern-
moulded
Islamic, 12th century A.D. Ht. 254 mm (10 in.)
cup or Maigelein, mouijj-blown in green forest
glass
Probably Khincland, 15th century.
Ht. 60 mm (235 in.)
Pattern-moulding was used in the cast in
Islamic times, from the 8th century A.D.
The moulding on these vessels tended to
be deeply impressed and covered the
whole body of the vessel. Similar vessels
continued to be produced for many years.
By the ioth century A.D. many more
bottles were being manufactured with
pattern moulding, often with a little bulb
or bulbs in the cylindrical neck. At the
same time bag-shaped ewers with folded
handles were being made, with indefinite-
designs that sometimes consisted of in-
scriptions moulded on to the body. In the
12th century A.D. sprinkler bottles in
heavy green glass were made with moulded
bodies, sometimes decorated with a ver-
micular collar at the base of the neck.
Common characteristics of this Islamic-
moulded glass were the narrow mouths of
the vessels and the inadequacy of the
applied handles.
A fairly common type of beaker used in the
Germanic countries in the 15th and 16th
centuries was known as a Maigelein-. This
was usually in the form of a beaker or
tallish bowl, mould-blown, with ribs or
flutes, or with a network in low relief and
having a high projecting kick inside on the
base. Apparently the name was also
somewhat loosely applied to a number of
different forms of cup in glass or metal. It
is possible that the word Maigelein comes
from the word Magel= Mddchen (maiden).
Typical examples are represented in a
painting by Dirk Bouts which may be
dated to about 1462-4, but they con-
tinued in fashion at least until the follow-
ing century. To produce the Maigelein
illustrated a bubble of hot glass was blown
into a vertically ribbed mould. By further
blowing and simultaneous twisting of the
glass, then blowing into the same mould,
while still twisting the blowing-iron, but
in the opposite direction, the pattern of
diagonal ribbing could be achieved.
The forest glass industries of England and
of other European countries, notably
France, used the technique of mould-
blowing to produce a great deal of their
wares. Some of the most popular patterns
on these humbler green-glass products of
the 16th and early 17th centuries were
produced by blowing a bubble of glass into
a mould, then expanding the pattern by
blowing once more. A ‘wrythen’ or swirled
ribbed effect was produced by using a
mould with a straight ribbed pattern, then
blowing and twisting the bubble to either
right or left. Other motifs found have been
chequered spiral-trailed decoration, where
applied trails on a vessel have been blown
into a ribbed mould, producing a raised
chequered design; also leaf patterns,
honeycomb patterns, and variations on a
pattern of raised ‘lozenges’ in the glass,
which have been found in many excava-
tions. Unfortunately, few complete vessels
have been found, so the shapes used can
only be conjectured.
In 1688 Bernard Perrot, a glass-maker of
Orleans, France, is recorded as having
received a patent for making glass moulded
in low relief. As a result of this reference
class of small bottles and flat flasks, usually
of green, blue, amber or other coloured
glass, with crude moulded decoration -
including the fleur-de-lys and other motifs
—have been ascribed to Perrot. The
beaker illustrated, in colourless glass wi
the same crude moulded decoration,
thought to be of the Perrot type. Perrot wks
an Italian who worked for a time with his
uncle Jean Castellan making glass it
Nevers, then at Orleans. An experiment :r
at heart, he left his uncle and gained
patents in 1668 and 1672 for red glass,
‘enamel’, opaque white glass and cameos
in antique style. His greatest invention was
his method of casting sheets of plate glass
for window or mirror glass, which was
rival the Venetians in the glass mirror
industry.
flask in indigo-coloured glass, moui.d-blown
China, laic 17th 10 early i8lh century’ A.D.
Ht. 328 mm (12-9 in.)
candlestick in clear colourless glass Willi a
mouided ’silesian’ stem
England, f.1714-1727. Ht. 248 mm (0-75 in.)
Glass has until very recently been treated
by Chinese craftsmen merely as a cheaper
or more convenient substitute for jade or
other semi-precious stones. There is no
evidence that glass-blowing was practised
in China on any scale until the reign of
K’ang Hsi (1662-1722), and although the
shapes were considered secondary to the
colouring of the glass, very pleasant effects
indeed were produced by the glass-
makers. The example illustrated is in
translucent indigo glass, the moulded
decoration consisting of four rectangular
panels each enclosing a peach. The early
products of the glass-house the Emperor
set up in Peking in 1680 show a common
feature in their ‘crisselled’ or otherwise
decayed condition; ‘crisselling’ means a
network of tiny cracks within the metal; the
effect is due to an excess of alkali in the
composition of the glass. It was not until
the 18th century that this defect was over-
come, when the excellent coloured glass
that China is noted for began to be pro-
duced.
The moulded stem on the candlestick
illustrated was introduced to England at
about the time when George I ascended
the English throne (c.1714). It was called
the ‘Silesian Stem’, perhaps in his honour,
though it was also called by such names as
‘moulded’, ‘pedestal’ and ’shouldered’.
This form of stem was certainly made in
Hesse, a neighbouring glass-making dis-
trict to Silesia, though it may have come to
England from Lauenstein in Hanover,
where a glass-house was founded in 1701;
King George I came from Hanover, and
it seems possible that the stem did have
Hanoverian origins.