SUBSCRIPTION REMINDER! Glass Your subscription is due for renewal – see subscription form on back News Study Day Number 16 November 2004 Published by Glass and lighting from antiquity to THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE HISTORY OF GLASS LIMITED Reg’d Charity: 275236 ISSN 1362-5195 the Medieval Period www.historyofglass.org.uk A study day on glass and lighting from antiquity to the medieval period will be held on Wednesday, 16th Once again we are in the enviable position of having March in the London Archaeological Archive and received loads of interesting contributions, enabling Research Centre (LAARC), Mortimer Wheeler us to produce another 16 page issue! Thank you to House, 46 Eagle Wharf Road, London N1. everyone who has sent us details of events, publications and research. For further information, and to offer papers, please contact Professor Jennifer Price, University of One of the roles of Glass News is to keep readers up Durham, Department of Archaeology, South Road, to date with forthcoming meetings, study days and Durham, DH1 3LE. Telephone: 0191 334 1100 conferences. With this in mind, we aim to produce E-mail: [email protected] Issue 17 by early February, with the following issue in July. This should allow better synchronisation with the timetable of events throughout the year, giving organisers more time to finalise arrangements before submitting details to Glass News. However we would IN THIS ISSUE rather not cancel Christmas for the editors and so early contributions would be much appreciated in page 2- AHG AGM and Wallace Collection order that we can do most of the work beforehand! study day: New light on old glass page 2- Lecture In the mean time we hope that you enjoy this issue page 3- Review and abstracts: Creativity in and don’t forget to renew your subscription using the Glass History & Heritage study day back page form. page 6- Review: The International Festival Sarah and Juanita. of Glass and Glass Biennale page 7- Review: The Corning Museum of Glass, Beyond Venice Exhibition page 9- Glass at the Museum of London Annual General Meeting page 10- A glass trail: The Wallace Collection page 11- Dalles de Verre Please note that due to unforeseen circumstances the page 14- Information sought Annual General Meeting of the Association for the History of Glass will not take place at The Fitzwilliam - Books Museum, Cambridge, as stated in Glass News No.15. page 16- Contacts, subscription and Please see page 2 for details. Apologies for any membership details inconvenience this may have caused. Glass News November 2004 1 AHG AGM and Wallace THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE HISTORY OF GLASS Collection Study Day New light on old glass: collections, Board of Management analysis and archaeology President: Ian Freestone Hon Secretary: Justine Bayley th Hon Treasurer: David Crossley On Thursday 25 November 2004, the Association for the History of Glass and the Wallace Collection will Members of Board hold a Study Day at the Wallace Collection, Manchester Square, London W1, to coincide with the Patricia Baker David Martlew AGM of the Association for the History of Glass. John Clark Juanita Navarro Hilary Cool Martine Newby Programme Aileen Dawson Julia Poole 10.15am Registration and Coffee Charles Hajdamach Jennifer Price Suzanne Higgott Caroline Rachel Russell Collections Jackson John Shepherd 10.45am Glass in the Wallace Collection - Suzanne Sarah Jennings Veronica Tatton-Brown Higgott and Juanita Navarro Reino Liefkes 11.20am Acquisitions of 16th-18th century European glass in the British Museum, 1980-2004 - Aileen Dawson 11.55am Venetian and façon de Venise glass in the Ashmolean Museum - Martine Newby Lecture 12.30pm Lunch break (lunch is not provided) 1.30pm AGM for AHG members Glass: from genesis to revelation Analysis and archaeology 2.15pm New work on Romano-British colourless glass - Caroline Jackson By Adrian C. Wright th 2.50pm Continuity and change in Anglo-Saxon 7 pm Tuesday 30 November glass compositions, 6th-7th centuries AD - Ditchburn Lecture Theatre, J.J. Thomson Physical Ian Freestone Laboratory, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading, RG6 6AF. 3.25pm Tea The past, present and future of glass will be reviewed 3.55pm Excavation and analysis of a 17th century from the perspective of a glass scientist. The factors glass furnace at Shinrone, Co. Offaly, which led to an improvement in glass quality will be Ireland - Sarah Paynter, Caimin O’Brien examined, with particular emphasis on the synergy and Jean Farrelly between the development of glass and that of science. The lecture is an updated version of a Presidential 4.30pm Discussion and closing remarks Address to the Society of Glass Technology and is In 1612, Neri published his now famous book on suitable for both non-scientists and scientists alike, glassmaking, which is frequently taken as the origin Attendance at the AGM is free and open to all AHG the only science included being of a pictorial nature of the scientific approach to glass. The gradual members. The cost of the study day will be £10 (i.e. no equations!). improvement in glass quality led to its increasing use (cheques payable to the Association for the History of in scientific experiments and especially for optical Glass Ltd). Please book and send cheques to: Attendance free - for more details, please e-mail: instrumentation. Conversely, the need for improved Meeting Secretary Martine Newby [email protected] homogeneity and a wider range of refractive indices e-mail: [email protected] Or visit the SGT website at http://www.societyofglasstechnology.org.uk Glass News November 2004 2 Study Day Review History & Heritage Group (Society of Glass Technology) and AHG: Creativity in Glass History and Heritage There is a value in chemical changes in the glass surface after exposure bringing together people to water at room temperature for as little as ten hours. whose interest in glass Such new knowledge will, it is hoped, lead to new reflects many different strategies for conservation of these important specialisms. Delegates artefacts. and speakers at the Moving to the realm of architectural glass, the session History & Heritage of after lunch began with Dennis Hadley’s account of Glass study day last the ingenuity of Victorian manufacturers of stained April spanned the and painted glass for domestic and ecclesiastical diversity of the glass community, creating an event applications. Scrap glass could be re-used rather than which was appreciated by the sixty or so delegates discarded; ground and sintered, it furnished an artistic who attended. This year’s event, on the 23rd of April medium well attuned to the tastes of the time. at the University of Liverpool Carnatic Conference Destruction of a work of art is always to be regretted, Park, was organised as a collaboration between the but particularly so when it occupies a significant place History & Heritage Group of the Society of Glass in the life of a community. Jonathan Cooke Technology and the Association for the History of described the recreation of an important Kempe Glass. Travel bursaries made available by both window, faithfully following as far as possible the organisations were most helpful and are gratefully original techniques and style without compromising acknowledged. ethical integrity. Not a forgery but a window re-born. Such sensitive recreation was materially helped by the The first session tackled issues surrounding Venetian availability of glass made using the same time- style glass, from three very different perspectives. Ian honoured techniques the Victorians used. Mike Tuffy Hankey spoke with hands-on conviction about the spoke of the trials, tribulations and triumphs of using experience of working with the glass composition crown and cylinder processes to make flat (well, flat- used by the 16th Century Venetian glassmakers, for ish) glass with character. the first time making the link between the unique working characteristics of the glass and the nature of The final session spanned the centuries, starting with the characteristic Venetian style. He highlighted the Roman gambling proclivities and ending with importance of the craftsmanly skills in the evolution Victorian entrepreneurism. Harriet Foster showed of glassmaking history and also in today’s world. how speculations about Roman gaming pieces made Glass composition was clearly important at this time, from opaque opal glass could be informed and but how glassmakers controlled it, in the absence of resolved using the kind of sophisticated analytical today’s chemical understanding, is not clear. techniques now taken for granted in modern Caroline Jackson and her co-workers have taken university chemistry departments. Hugh Willmott forward our appreciation of this by showing spoke of the archaeology of glassmaking in 17th experimentally how alkali derived from plant ash century London. As usual, furnace superstructure was could vary widely, both in chemical composition and no longer extant so considerable interpretative work the melting characteristics of derived batches. Both was being progressed. Analysis of crucible remains the diligence and subtlety of the mediaeval and finds of scrap glass were informing the debate. glassmakers are to be applauded. The works of art Moving forward to the 1840’s, John Hartley spoke which were the end product of this activity are very about the Percival Vickers factory in Victorian vulnerable to deterioration even in the best kept of Manchester, where rescue archaeological excavations today’s museums. Sarah Fearn’s work on the details revealed enough of the furnace structures to allow a of how moisture attacks the glass surface is breaking clear picture of technical evolution during the sixty new ground in the application of sophisticated years of operation to emerge, and to allow speculation analytical techniques capable of detecting the Glass News November 2004 3 about how the furnace technology enabled some commonly found plant materials and their Manchester pressed glass to access new markets.