The Celebrated Barberini Or Portland Vase

The Celebrated Barberini Or Portland Vase, in the British Museum, is made in a blue and white cameo. This splendid work of art was discovered in a marble sarcophagus near Rome, which is supposed to have been the tomb of the Emperor Alexander Severus. The vase is ten inches in height, is two-handled, and has for the subject of one side a figure decoration representing Thetis consenting to be the bride of Peleus, attended by Poseidon and Eros; on the other side is Peleus and Thetis on Mount Pelion, and on the bottom is a bust of Paris. The ground is transparent blue glass, and the subjects are beautifully engraved in cameo out of the superimposed white layer. A similar kind of vase, but smaller, was found at Pompeii, and is now in the Museum at Naples, and the remains of the Auldjo Vase in the British Museum is also in a similar style, the cameo decoration of it consisting of vine-leaves.

Intaglios and cameos, sometimes of a large size, were copied in glass from gems; these were usually cast in moulds, and many of them are of high value as works of art. (Fig. 298).

The Romans made window glass of small squares or oblongs, which was manufactured by rolling it on a plate.

In the early Christian period gold leaf was used as a means of decoration on glass: sometimes the gold was annealed to the surface, and sometimes it was placed, as the making of the gold smalto for mosaics, between two layers of thin glass, and afterwards fired. Patterns and figure subjects were executed in gold foil, and formed the decoration of glass dishes and bowls, the broken remains of which have been found in the Christian tombs of the Roman Catacombs.

Though extensive glass works are known to have existed at Constantinople and at Thessalonica between the ninth and thirteenth centuries, there are scarcely any remains of Byzantine glass in existence that can with certainty be ascribed to the Eastern empire, unless we except the five cups and two shallow basins of thick green glass that are decorated with Byzantine ornament, and which form part of the treasure of St. Mark's at Venice. Glass was used in the windows of Byzantine churches and, of course, in the making of the mosaic tesserae.

It is highly probable that glass objects were made in Syria, and at Damascus especially, since the Roman period, yet examples of the earlier work from these parts are very rare. The celebrated gold cup of Chrosroes (a.d. 531-579) is a Persian work which has been set with glass lozenges and rosettes. Other examples are small glass weights, discs, or tokens, and a Saracenic glass basin in the Cluny Museum at Paris, which has been made either in Egypt or Syria, and is known to date between 1279 and 1294.

With the above exceptions there is no authentic work that can be pointed to which dates earlier than the fourteenth century. The finest examples of Saracenic glass, some of which may be seen in our museums, are the beautiful enamelled glass mosque lamps (Fig. 299). They mostly date from the fourteenth century, and are usually decorated richly with Arabic inscriptions - sometimes with the name of the artist - in gold and coloured enamels.

Fig. 297. Ancient Roman Glass Bottle. (S. K. M).

Fig. 298. Roman Glass Tablet in relief. (S.K.M).

In the city of Damascus glass cups and other vessels of great beauty were made at this period, having enamelled Saracenic decorations.

The "cups of Damascus" were much prized, and according to the inventories of the kings of England, France, and Germany, we learn that they were set in gold stands or mounts, and were usually presents to Western monarchs, brought by their ambassadors from the East.

The cup kept by the Musgrave family, and known as the "Luck of Edenhall," is made in enamelled Saracenic glass, and has a leather covering of fifteenth-century workmanship.

Venetian Blown Glass

Venetian Blown Glass has always been renowned for its beauty, both in its elegance of form - as in the wineglasses, goblets, and cups - and in the beautiful opalescent hues of its delicate colouring.

The making of glass in Venice began to assume great importance in the fourteenth century, but many small glass furnaces were in operation for more than a hundred years prior to this dale.

The Venetians apparently, in the early period of the Renaissance, studied very closely the remains of the Roman glass, and eventually imitated and produced nearly all the kinds of glass that in former days were made in ancient Rome.

Another direct cause which led to the advancement of the glass makers' craft in Venice was the parricidal conquest of Constantinople by the Christians of Rome, aided by the fleets of Venice, in 1204, for after the sacking of the Byzantine capital, most of the portable works of art of every kind - including the bronze horses that had been brought from Rome to Constantinople by its founder, and which now adorn the front of St. Mark's - were carried off to Venice, and it is more than likely that after this the glass mosaic workers, among other Byzantine craftsmen, had come to Venice, where they found employment in the rising republic.

The work in the mosaic decoration of St. Mark's doubtless helped to develop the making of glass in Venice, and the lagunes were rich in marsh-loving plants that would yield alkali and furnish the fine sand requisite for its manufacture.

Mention is made in one of the documents in the archives of Venice, dated 1090, of one Petrus Flavianus, who was a "phiolarius," or glass maker, and the trade regulations of the glass makers' societies or corporations are preserved at Venice and Murano, which show that in the thirteenth century they had become important bodies.