Sep
24
Antique Bohemian Glass
September 24, 2009 |
England
By 1567 Jean Carre had arrived in London from the Lorraine by way of
Antwerp and commenced making window glass by the Lorraine method
under licence. Several Continental glassmaking families had already
settled in England. The Schurterres in the 14th, the Peytowes in the 15th,
and in the mid-16th century the famous Huguenot families ofTyxach
(du Thisac), Henvey (de Hennezel), Tittery (de Thietry) and Hoc (de
Houx) arrived to lay the foundation of the Stourbridge glass industry.
Carre obtained his licence for making cristallo d la facon de Venise at
the Crutched Friars Hall, a glasshouse which apparently was already in
existence in 1564 or 1565, though seemingly not particularly efficient.
Carre therefore sent for Venetian craftsmen, among them thei great
glassmaker Jacopo Verzelini, who supposedly arrived in London from
Antwerp in 1571. There are sources which indicate that he may already
have arrived in 1565 and initiated the manufacture of Venetian cristallo,
and this opens an interesting field of speculation as to the merits of Jean
Carre’s role in the manufacture of cristallo at this early period. Suffice
to say that in 1572, after Carre’s death, Verzelini was the master: of the
Crutched Friars glasshouse, and in 1574 he obtained a Royal Patent
from Elizabeth I to manufacture Venice glasses for a period of 2 lj years.
Of the dozen or so glasses associated with Verzelini today, about nine
can be attributed to his London glasshouse. The earliest, dated 1577, is
in the Corning Museum, New York. Typical features are the stejri with
hollow mould-brown knop or bulb, bowl of ample size, and of clear,
faintly greenish or greyish metal. Diamond engraving in the hatched
Italian style is associated with Anthony de Lisle who had come to England
from the ‘Dominions of the King of France’ and applied for citizenship
in 1597. A lozenge motif on the bowl and sometimes foot, scrolU, floral
sections, friezes of trees, stags and hounds and commemorative inscrip-
tions seem typical of de Lisle’s work. Occasionally, Verzelini’s (glasses
are decorated by enamelling or gilding, but this has worn badly. Glasses
made at the same period in Hall, in the Tyrol, are in some instances so
similar to Verzelini’s work that they might have been produced in his
glasshouse, and bear testimony to the communication and exchange
between glassmakers throughout Europe.
Despite malicious acts by jealous merchants and importers, Verzelini
led the industry until his retirement in 1592, and thus initiated the era
of monopolies. Sir Jerome Bowes held the monopoly until 1604, when
the licence was sold by one profiteer to another.
Bohemia and the German-speaking Land
Silesia, Moravia and Bohemia are the areas involved in Czech
gl ssmaking. In common with the Rhenish product, the greenish bubbly
Waldglas appears in traditional forms. The beaker with applied prunts
-. hppenbecher - appears in various modifications: the Igel (Hedgehog)
with prickles, and the tall Krautstrunk (cabbage stalk) covered with
pc ipted prunts in circular arrangement. The antique sprinkler emerges
as the Angster or Kuttrolf with bulbous body and long, slightly twisted
glass tubes. The Maigelein (a low cup) still appeared in the 15th century.
C( njnmon vessel forms are the Humpen, a tall cylindrical glass of giant
pr )jportion, the Passglas and the Stangenglas, of narrow cylindrical form
applied hollow foot.
ith the expansion of the German mining industry, fuel costs rose
steeply and in the 16th century a number of small glasshouses and in-
dividual glassmakers moved to Bohemia and Silesia where conditions
wire more favourable. The big landowners and nobility were quick to
realize the advantages of possessing large tracts of forest land. They
began to set up glasshouses on their estates, attracting glassmakers and
their families by granting special privileges - a development paralleled
in France.
Baroque and Rococo prosperity, the support by the Church of artisans
ard artists, and the monastic activities of winemaking and ale brewing
al encouraged an expansion in drinking glass manufacture. This in turn
pr Miferated enamelled decoration of a most fascinating kind which
lie urished particularly during the 17th and early 18th centuries. Scenes
from the domestic and political life of the nobility and of influential
arlikans or tradesmen, Biblical subjects, representation of the ‘Seven
Ages of Man’, the double-headed eagle (Reichsadler) with armorial
shields of all embracing lands, and entire families and family trees are
enchantingly represented in a refreshing rustic style. Emblems of Trades
ds and scenic representations, as for instance the Ochsenkopf, a
ntain in the Fichtelgebirge, frequently have added inscriptions and
hiit easy identification. Small beakers, straight or everted at the rim,
rated with brightly enamelled heraldic motifs are usually ascribed
axonian manufacture.
the beginning of the 16th century, increasing quantities of silver were
be ng mined in Germany, Austria and Hungary. The mines of India and
th: Americas further increased the supply. This coincided with a turbu-
lei t period in Italy, when in 1526 Rome was sacked, and the consequent
di persal of artists carried ideas to other centres, both in Northern Italy
and beyond. Rulers all over Europe now began to vie with each other in
the culture and the magnificence of their courts, setting themselves up as
pa Irons and collectors in the manner of 15th-century Italian princes and
embracing the new style learnt from Italy, which everywhere gradually
16th-century stangenglas decorated with
prunts, late 16th century.
Gold and Silver
drove out Gothic motifs in favour of classical decoration.
Court artists were employed to create designs for goldsmiths to follow,
an arrangement which can occasionally be detected in the unsuitability
of a design for the material in which it is nevertheless superbly executed.
Important centres of goldsmiths’ work at this time were Paris, Awgsburg
and Nuremberg. But as the artists who worked in these and other centres
came from all over Europe and used designs by Court artists such as
Guilio Romano, J. A. Ducereau, Hans Holbein and Cornells Floris -
which were subsequently engraved and passed round lesser workshops
- it is difficult to detect any particularly national flavour in work of this
period.
The power and prestige of Hapsburg Spain (which also included the
Kingdom of Naples) and of the Hapsburg Holy Roman Empire, with a
sphere of influence which stretched from Antwerp across Europe to
Prague, was enhanced by Spanish control over the rich imports of bullion
from the New World into Andalusia. Much of the treasure coming into
the Iberian peninsula was used to make objects for ecclesiastical use.
Gold brought back from India by Vasco daGama, who first rounded the
Cape of Good Hope in 1497, was used to make a monstrance. Although
the goldsmiths of southern Spain were the first to receive the increased
supplies of gold, silver and precious stones, it was not until the 1570s
that a national Spanish style evolved out of the varied work that had
previously been carried on in the many regional centres. From the 1570s,
however, the richness and austerity associated with Philip II’s building
of the Escorial continued to be associated with silver, until the baroque
style emerged in the next century. In the greater part of Europe tl e clarity
of Italian Renaissance forms gradually became obscured because
Northern artists, frightened of empty spaces, tended to overload a
design with detail. At the same time, a complete mastery of his craft by
the goldsmith led to ever greater display of virtuosity. Wenzel Ji mnitzer
of Nuremberg (1508-85), for example, is renowned in part for his
dazzling technique, learnt from Paduan artists.
Jamnitzer’s earliest surviving work is the ‘Merckelsche’ tabe-centre
now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The piece is a remarkable
example of many of the goldsmith’s techniques - embossing, erjgraving,
enamelling and so on, as well as an example of Jamnitzer’s penchant for
casts of insects, reptiles and grasses. His other surviving pieces include
a nautilus shell set in silver gilt, c. 1570 and the Kaiserpokal or Imperial
cup, made in 1564, which is less elaborate than many of his table-centres
and has a statuette of Emperor Maximilian II on the lid.
Benvenuto Cellini (1500-71) is probably the most famous of all gold-
smiths, although our knowledge of his actual skill is entirely reliant on
his only surviving piece, the famous salt-cellar made for Francois I of
France and now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
Sometimes overshadowed by Cellini is the Italian goldsmith Antonio
Gentili (1519-1609), who is best known for the magnificent cjross and
accompanying pair of candlesticks in silver gilt made for Cardinal
Alessandro Farnese who gave them to St Peter’s in Rome in 1682. The
set is still used on the high altar on special occasions. The influence of
Michelangelo on the architectural and figurative elements of these pieces
irly visible. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has in
iijssession a silver knife, fork and spoon which it is thought may be
ily other Gentili work now remaining. The evidence for the
irship of these pieces is a drawing of a spoon, also in the possession
of the museum, which is almost identical to the existing spoon and
which is signed by Gentili. In addition, the elaborate handles in classical
motifs correspond to descriptions of Gentili’s work by his biographer
(iiovanni Baglione.
Between 1515 and 1523, Enrique de Arfe (1470-1545) made a custodia
a Spanish portable tabernacle lor I oledo Cathedral which has been
desc ribed as ‘the last word in Gothic ecclesiastical silver’. It stands some
3 met es (III ft) high, weighs more than 3 hundredweight and is adorned
wi th 26 ) statuettes scattered amongst Gothic arches and pinnacles. De
Arft was born in the village of Harff in the Rhineland, from which he
takes his name. He trained in Cologne and went to Spain before the turn
ol the century. His earliest known CUStodia, which is also his first known
wor was made for the Abbey ol San Benito at Sahagiin. A custodia he
leted in 1518 for Cordova Cathedral can still be seen, unlike a ten
ligh custodia he made for L6on Cathedral which was destroyed in
to help pay for the war against Napoleon.
fique was succeeded by his son Antonio whose first recorded
pa was for the Cathedral of Santiago di Compostella, begun in
15391 and finished in 1545.
In politically restless Northern Italy, a style of decoration evolved
from the beginning of the 1520s in which interlacing leather-like straps,
ending in curls resembling wood shavings, were used at first to frame,
then to decorate and finally to dominate interior decoration. This strap-
work was pushed to its extreme in designs for metalwork and all through
the oth century its influence was felt throughout northern Europe. Its
nervous uneasiness was allied with grotesques derived from late 15th
century Italian revivals of Imperial Roman decoration. Mannerist
designers continued to use Renaissance decorative ideas, but gradually
the stylish way in which a theme was expressed became more important
die theme itself. To express an idea in una bclla maniera, to use the
current phrase, could become the only goal of an impoverished
and brilliant technique might slickly embody a worn out theme.
Clocks
11 seems likely that the first successful spring was not made before the
last auarter of the 15th century, the problem lying in making a spring of
sufficient power that would continue to drive a clock without breaking.
Brass was probably the material of choice lor the fust Springs. One of
the I rst difficulties that the inventor would have faced is that as the spring
nds it gradually loses power, driving the clock unevenly. Two solu-
to this problem were eventually found - the stackfreed and the fusee.