Glass


British Porcelain
French Porcelain
German Porcelain
Other Countries
Furniture
Glass
Pottery
Miscellaneous

Facon de Venise Ringed and Winged Wine Glass


Back
Print Details
Request Details


This item has been sold
Dates Circa 1650
Medium Glass
Origin Spain
Description An extremely important and rare 17th century Facon de Venise ringed and winged wine glass.

A funnel shaped bowl with cobalt blue wings and suspended blue-green ribbed rings. The Hollow stem is attached by a merese to the bowl and the pedestal foot.

The rings are not merely decorative. When a glass is emptied the glass rings would make the glass chime, denoting that the glass needed to be refilled. Wine glasses of this type are very rare, there are several beakers exhibited within museums in Germany.

The Museum Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurst has a fine clear glass ringed beaker and The Art Institute Chicago holds the finest documented ringed beaker with multiple rings attached to each of the prunts. This is typical “Roemer green”.

One of the best ways to identify the origins of a glass is the colour. The elements used within the base composition have varying absorption frequencies as a result. This glass has an amber tinge. The colour is associated with two early glassmaking regions in Europe, Florentine/ Tuscan glass and those from Barcelona and the Catalan tradition. The depth of blue in the wings and its opacity is strongly indicative of the latter.

Glass was first produced in Catalonia by Venetian exiles and it had reached a remarkable level of competence by the late 15th century. The Barcelona glass makers guild, a trade union in all but name was founded in 1456.

In Catalonia they were using burned barilla, a type of saltwort as the flux. This left a green tinge in the glass. In an attempt to “wash” the glass, or more technically to decolourise it, small quantities of calzedonia namely bloodstone were added. It is the bloodstone that imparts the amber hue.

Fortuitously the Catalans also had a strong tradition in painting and there are a number of still life portraits that are quite invaluable to the glass collector. Juan Van Der Hamen (1596-1631) still life “sweetmeats and glass vessels” highlights the pale amber colour in Catalan glass against the backdrop of a white-ware tazza.

The height at which the wings are set on the side of the bowl is also typically Catalan. On Dutch, Venetian and Florentine examples the wings are set higher up the bowl.

See Fragile Treasures – Spanish Glass From The Renaissance to Baroque 2011 page 142 for a strikingly similar example.

We have contacted the Museo del Cao Ferrat in Barcelona who based on the images supplied estimate that this piece is late 16th to mid 17th century as being the date range provided.


13.5cm high
7.5dia bowl
6cm dia foot