The Mentor · Glass and Glass-Making · Page 1

MENTOR GRAVURES

THE PORTLAND VASE
·
THE LUCK OF EDEN HALL
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VENETIAN GLASS
16th and 17th Centuries
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GOBLETS OF BOHEMIAN GLASS
·
ENGLISH CUT GLASS BOWL
18th Century
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LANDSCAPE WINDOW
Tiffany Favrile Glass

VENETIAN GLASS
17th-18th Centuries

LASS manufacture is a subject that has many phases, including stained glass, plate glass, optical glass, bottle-glass, wire glass. Some of the most important of these will be covered in future issues of The Mentor. This first number of the series discusses Decorative Glass and its manufacture. It is a remarkable fact that, while the chief quality of glass is transparency, all the materials that compose it are opaque. The mysterious agent that produces the change is fire. Glass is the offspring of fire.
Does it not seem strange that so many objects can be made from a steaming liquid metal soup blown through a tube to form a bubble? It is believed that men learned how to manipulate this hot, liquid bubble at an early period in the world's history.

Composition of Glass

Since the beginning, the two essential elements required by glass-makers have been silica and an alkali. Glass falls naturally into two divisions: glass of maritime countries, where the alkali is soda; and glass of forest countries, where the alkali is potash.