THE GLASS OF GERMANY—_continued_
German Cut and Engraved Glass—The Ruby Glass of Kunckel—Milch Glass
I have still to describe the origin and development of a method of
decorating the surface which forms, I may almost say, the last main
division in the artistic history of glass. For when I come in
subsequent chapters to treat of Dutch and English glass—and with this
my task practically closes—it will be found that this glass falls
almost entirely under the head, and is in a general way an outcome, of
the engraved or cut glass of Germany.
Here at the beginning I am confronted with a difficulty of a class only
too often met with when treating of the technique of the minor
arts—the difficulty of finding in our language suitable words to
express, without danger of misconception and confusion, the practical
details of the matter in hand. I have now to deal with the methods by
which the surface of glass may be cut, polished, scraped, or eaten
away, so as to form an artistic design. This, I may say at once, can be
effected by any one of the following methods:—
1. By _scratching_ with a diamond. I can find no other word; the term
‘engraving’ is vague and ambiguous; to use the word ‘etching’ is still
worse, for though the result resembles in a measure the etched line on
copper, this expression should be reserved for the process by which the
surface is eaten away (the German _ätzen_) by acid.
2. By removing the surface by means of a small revolving wheel, or more
rarely, of a cutting-tool, with the aid of emery or other hard powdered
stone. The term ‘engraving’ may well be used here, if it is understood
in the sense in which we speak of an ‘engraved gem,’ for small hard
stones have been cut in this way from ancient times.
3. When, however, by means of a large wheel, the surface is deeply cut
away, we may better use the words ‘cutting’ or ‘carving.’ The grinding
down of the surface and subsequent polishing, as in the case of glass
cut into facets, would fall into this division. It is, however, often
difficult to say which of these terms—engraving, cutting, or
grinding—it is preferable to use; nor is the use of the German words
‘_schleifen_’ and ‘_schneiden_’ much more definite.
4. By exposing parts of the surface to the fumes of hydrofluoric acid,
the only acid that will attack glass. This process may well be called
etching.
We have already spoken of the use of the diamond by the Venetians for
scratching lace-like designs upon the surface of their thin glass, so
unsuitable for other forms of engraving. The diamond point was early
used in a similar way in Germany. Mathesius, after speaking of the
imitations of the _vetro di trina_, made in his day in Silesia,
proceeds to say that it is also the practice to draw (_reissen_) ‘_auf
die schönen und glatten Venedischen gleser mit demand_ [diamond]
_allerley laubwerck und schöne züge_.’
This decoration with the diamond point was carried to great perfection
in Silesia. Herr von Czihak has reproduced in his work on the glass of
that country (p. 122) two tall cylinders of this ‘_gerissene glas_’ (so
it is called in contemporary inventories), which cannot be later than
the sixteenth century. So, again, much of the glass of _cristallo_ type
made at Hall in the Tyrol was thus decorated.
But this process of drawing designs with a diamond point on the surface
of glass required the sure hand of an artist; there was no room for any
‘_pentimenti_’—moreover, the result was not effective.[206] Before
long, in Germany at least, except here and there by amateurs, it came
to be used merely as supplementary to the newly introduced processes of
cutting, engraving, and polishing—that is to say, to the combination
of methods concisely indicated by the Germans as _schliff und schnitt_.
This was, indeed, a return to a very old treatment of the material much
in favour in later Roman times. We have recognised in the so-called
Hedwig glasses the last efforts of an art already extinct in the West
and decadent in the East; but we have no link with which to connect
these rude, deeply carved goblets with the engraved glass of the German
renaissance. The Germans were, indeed, familiar with the processes
employed in polishing the surfaces of hard stones, especially of their
native agates (as in the Hunsrück district). This they effected in
early days by rubbing on a board, the _schleif-platte_, and already by
the middle of the fifteenth century by means of a grindstone
(_schleif-stein_) turned by water-power. There is, however, no evidence
to connect this industry with the new art of engraving glass, which
arose, it would seem, full-fledged at Prague and at Nuremberg just
before the commencement of the seventeenth century.[207]
There is, indeed, every reason to accept the origin of this art given
by contemporary writers—that it was learned from the Italian carvers
of rock crystal, who in the last years of the sixteenth century were
working for the Emperor Rudolph II., that moody recluse and most
unsatisfactory ruler, who was, however, an eager and industrious
inquirer into all the new arts and sciences of the day. This
essentially _cinquecento_ art of carving in rock crystal had been
before this time carried to great perfection in the north of Italy. The
most famous master was Valerio Belli (1479-1546), called Vicentino,
from his birthplace. The finest work of this school is to be found in
the caskets built up with plates of rock-crystal delicately carved in
shallow intaglio.[208] Other artists carved in the round bowls and
vases in the form of shells or other shapes, suggested, in the first
place, by the outline of the original mass of crystal. If these men
were in any way indebted to Greek artists from Constantinople or
elsewhere, it can only have been for the knowledge of the mechanical
processes, for there is no trace of Byzantine influence in their art.
To judge by surviving examples, it was in the main the work carved in
the round that found favour at the court of Rudolph II. We hear
especially of two craftsmen from Milan, Girolamo and Caspare Miseroni,
who worked for that prince.
As what we know of the early history of cutting and engraving on glass
in Germany is chiefly derived from Sandrart’s famous work on the lives
of German artists, I will here translate, with considerable
abbreviations in places, what he says on this subject (_Teutsche
Academie_, Nürnberg, 1675, Part II. book iii. chap. xxiv.).—It was
during the reign of the most worthy Emperor Rudolph II. that the art of
cutting glass was rediscovered and made public by Caspar Lehmann,
_Cammer-Edelstein und Glas-Schneider_ to his majesty. The emperor
rewarded him richly for his discovery, and in the year 1609, at Prague,
granted him certain privileges in a diploma which has been
preserved:—‘Let all men know that our privy-precious-stone and
glass-cutter Caspar Lehmann has informed us, that now some years since,
with great strivings, with busy reflection, and not trifling cost, he
discovered the art and practice of glass-cutting. And let it be known
that the same C. L. shall have full liberty to carry on his art and
work free and without let; and that no one, whoever he be, shall,
without his consent, practise or deal in such art or work. And we
request all the Electors, Princes, etc. etc., of the Empire to punish
any infraction of this privilege with a fine of twenty marks of gold of
true alloy.’
Lehmann, indeed, continues Sandrart, well deserved these privileges.
Both he and his comrade Zacharias Belzer (they were both friends of
Hans von Achen and Paul von Vianen, and for the most part they were
lodged at court in one apartment) executed such excellent and artistic
works in crystal and glass (some of which are still preserved in the
Imperial Schatzkammer and also in the palace of the Elector at Munich)
that they command the admiration of all connoisseurs.[209]
George Schwanhart the elder, says Sandrart, was the son of Johann, a
skilful cabinet-maker and armourer, who made, among other things,
exceptionally beautiful inlaid work of mother-of-pearl. George, who in
his youth had learned cabinet-making and other arts from his father,
acquired from the above-mentioned Lehmann a thorough acquaintance with
the new art of glass-cutting. So much was he loved by Lehmann on
account of his ingenious parts that the latter, before his death,
bequeathed to him his privileges and rights as well as other
property.[210] Schwanhart, after this time, further cultivated the art
and much advanced it by various inventions, especially by the new
‘smooth or polished cutting’ (_hellen oder blancken schneiden_). His
industry and skill obtained for him the praise and love of emperor,
kings, and princes, as well as of all those who cultivated the arts and
sciences. The late Emperor (Ferdinand III., 1637-1658) continued these
privileges to his sons, Henry and George the younger, and gave to both
of them appointments at court.
Now although, continues Sandrart, these artists had brought to
perfection the art of glass-cutting as far as it depended upon judgment
and drawing, yet in consequence of the too powerful and clumsy
machinery made use of by them, even they were unable to give grace and
charm to their work. When we consider the big heavy wheels that they
were fain to employ—turned by those still flourishing weeds, their
loutish assistants—we may well marvel at the work they turned out.
Since that time the discovery of more convenient and efficient tools
has brought it about that nowadays the art of glass-cutting is no
longer a strenuous task, but rather a pastime. So that with
intelligence and industry all the charm and softness of nature, whether
trees, landscapes, animals, or portraits, may be by this art expressed.
And yet these glass-cutters of to-day, with all their advantages, might
obtain from their patrons still greater praise, were they to devote
themselves more to the practice of drawing and to travelling about
instead of marrying early and, as a consequence, having to work in the
kitchen.[211]
Henry Schwanhart—I am still dependent upon Sandrart—who with his
brother George inherited his father’s privileges, has not only
distinguished himself as a philosopher and a poet, but has carried the
art of glass-cutting to greater perfection. He has succeeded in tracing
on glass, landscapes and complete views of towns—the city of Nuremberg
above all—in correct proportion and cunningly retiring perspective, as
in a painted picture. Nay, with his subtle wit he has done what before
was held to be an impossibility, he has discovered an acid (_corrosiv_)
of such a nature that the hardest crystalline glass yields to it, and
like metals and stones, suffers itself to be corroded and eaten
into.[212] He has quite lately given a complete proof of his skill in
this art by etching all kinds of ornamental designs and inscriptions
with the greatest neatness and precision. He has engraved, too, the
human figure both nude and draped, and has brought it, as well as all
kinds of animals and flowers, into high relief (_in erheben zehr hoch
gebracht_).[213]
So far Sandrart, who was a contemporary of the younger Schwanhart, and
I think that this long extract will give the reader some idea of the
high esteem in which the art of engraving on glass was held at that
time, as well as of the relation of the glass-engravers to the workers
in other branches of art. The works of the Schwanharts are now, I
believe, only to be identified in the case of certain examples of
engraved glass in the Museum at Hamburg. Here may be seen a _roemer_,
signed ‘G. S. 1660.’ The delicately engraved landscape on this glass,
where the work of the diamond and that of the finest wheel are
skilfully combined, would point to this being probably the work of the
younger of the two Georges.
That even before the end of the sixteenth century there were engravers
of glass in other parts of Germany, above all in Silesia, is very
probable, but there can be no doubt that it was the connection of
Lehmann and of the Schwanharts with the Imperial Court that first
brought this style of decoration into favour with people in high
station. In fact, for some time this engraved glass was made for the
most part to the order of wealthy patrons. Besides those named by
Sandrart, the Archbishop-Elector of Mainz and the Bishops of Würzburg
and Bamberg are mentioned as patrons of the new art, and large prices
were given for fine specimens of engraving.[214] One immediate
consequence of the new fashion was to cause a demand for an absolutely
clear white glass, and this led to such improvements in the manufacture
that the glass of Silesia and Bohemia was soon recognised as the best
in Europe.
[Illustration:
_PLATE XLII_
ENGRAVED BEAKER. THE COVER WITH ENAMELLED METAL KNOB
GERMAN, EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY]
From other sources we hear that George Schwanhart the elder had three
daughters, Sophia, Maria, and Suzanna, who devoted themselves to the
engraving on glass of flowers and ornaments, and especially of those
examples of calligraphy then so much in fashion. Sandrart, most
ungallantly, fails to mention these ladies, who were his contemporaries.
Many other names of engravers on glass have been handed down to
us,[215] but I will only mention Hermann Schwinger (1640-83), who was
also a wood-carver and engraver on copper. We have in the British
Museum (Slade, No. 883) a tall cup of thin white glass elaborately
engraved with a Bacchic subject. Below, scratched by the diamond in
small characters, may be read ‘_Herman Schwinger, cristall schnider zu
Nürnberg_.’
There has been much discussion as to the nature of the improvements
effected by the Schwanharts in the glass-cutting machinery. But before
the end of the seventeenth century the arrangement of the wheels and
the division of labour were probably on the whole established much in
the manner that we find in local works in Bohemia at the present day.
In a general way we may say that there has always been a distinction
between the mechanical processes of grinding and polishing and the more
delicate and artistic work of the engraver. In the latter case the work
is done by pressing the glass against the edge of a minute copper
wheel. On the other hand, the glass is ground down on a wheel of iron
from three to eighteen inches in diameter, it is smoothed upon a stone
wheel and finally polished upon one of wood, with the assistance in
each case of suitable abrading mediums, whether emery, quartz sand,
tripoli, or putty-powder.
As early as the seventeenth century these _glas-schleifer_ were divided
into several more or less independent groups. The _eckigräber_ did the
coarser work. It fell to them, in the first place, to remove all
irregularities on the surface of the glass—for example, the rough
projections left on the foot where the pontil had been attached—and
more especially to make the cross cuttings required to form the facets,
which at a later time were so much in vogue. The _kugler_ were another
class of workmen, who prepared the shallow circular or oval pits which
play so important a part in the decoration.
The work of the actual engraver belongs more to the domain of art. The
cutting in this case is effected by a little wheel of copper from a
quarter inch to an inch in diameter, revolving rapidly at the end of a
horizontal spindle, moved by a treadle. These little copper wheels are
of various forms, and not the least part of the skill of the artist
lies in the selection of the form most suitable for the work in hand.
The decision as to the depth of the engraved line, and again as to
which part should be polished and which left dull depends also upon his
judgment. His difficulties are increased by the fact that he is unable
to follow the progress of the work in hand, for not only has he to
press the glass against the under surface of the wheel, but the part of
the surface on which he is working remains covered by the emery or
other abrading material employed (Von Czihak, pp. 136-139). It will be
noticed that as a rule the incised parts are left unpolished and dull
as they come from the wheel, and that the polishing is reserved for the
little circular depressions, the _kugeln_, which then show out like
jewels cut _en cabochon_.
We are apt to associate this engraved glass with Bohemia, but to say
nothing of the highly finished and artistic work done at Nuremberg and
Regensburg, it is probable that in no other district has the engraving
and cutting of glass become so much a distinct industry as in the
Silesian valleys that descend from the highest peaks of the
Riesengebirge towards the town of Hirschberg. As early as the
commencement of the seventeenth century we come across an Italian
engraver on rock crystal in the service of the Freiherr von
Schaffgotsch at Schloss Kynast, and at the same spot towards the end of
the century, in the employ of the same family, we find Friedrich
Winter, who has the credit of being the first in this district to apply
water-power to the cutting and polishing of glass.
Soon after this time there are many complaints of the decadence and
vulgarisation of the art. Thus in 1708 a writer in a commercial paper
complains that the engraved glass, which formerly was only to be found
on the table of people of quality, had now become ‘dirt-cheap,’ and
that the art of the glass-cutter was brought into contempt by the
hawkers of glasses who scoured nearly the whole of Europe with their
engraved wares. Whole chestsful of these commoner glasses, the writer
says, were sent to Spain, and found there a good market (quoted by Von
Czihak, p. 129). Sandrart, it will be remembered, some years before
this, had uttered a protest against the _stimpler_—the bungling,
ignorant workmen—who were ruining the art, and now we find the same
expression used in the diploma of the monopoly that was granted to the
above-mentioned Winter in 1687 by Count Christoph Leopold of Silesia.
Thanks in a measure to the energy of Winter and to the support given to
him, the little town of Warmbrunn soon became known all through Germany
as well for its cut glass as for the warm springs to which it owed its
name. As in other parts of Silesia, the glass industry, after the
separation from Bohemia, suffered from the fiscal regulations of the
new Prussian régime. Frederick the Great took an interest in the
manufacture of glass, but this was shown rather in the encouragement
and patronage accorded to the new glass-works that had been established
nearer to his capital.
On the other side of the mountains also, at the end of the seventeenth
century, some of the great Bohemian landholders were active in
promoting the manufacture of glass on their estates. Of the Kinsky
family and the town of Steinschönau (even to-day a great centre of the
glass industry), we hear something in the curious account of his life
left by a wandering glass-cutter, one Kreybich, who was born in that
town in 1662. Kreybich, who had mastered the arts both of enamelling
and engraving glass, carried his wares on his barrow all over Southern
Germany. In his later journeys he pushed forward as far as Poland and
Russia. As early as 1688 he is found in London, where, in spite of the
competition of many new glass-furnaces (these, he confesses, turned out
better metal than that which he had with him), he found a good demand
for his engraved glass. When the wandering retailers of glass—we can
hardly call them hawkers—returned to renew their supplies, then, says
Kreybich, there was an eager demand from the glass-houses, and no less
from the glass-cutters, the _kugler_, and the polishers. But not a few
of these wandering glassmen carried, it would seem, their
engraving-wheel and their tools with them, and engraved on the spot the
arms or the initials of the purchasers of their glasses.
We may indeed regard the first half of the eighteenth century as the
most flourishing period of the glass industry in Bohemia and Silesia.
At the end of that time the Bohemian town of Haida—at the present day
the centre of more than one branch of the glass manufacture—rose to
importance, thanks to the fostering care of Count Kinsky. But the
industrial and commercial element now came more and more to prevail.
Enterprising manufacturers like Franz Weidlich of Steinschönau exported
to Spain and Portugal, and others supplied the Eastern market as far as
the Indies with glass summarily decorated with ‘little wreaths cut with
a small copper wheel with the aid of emery.’ This Eastern trade passed
through Vienna, and meeting with every encouragement from Maria Theresa
and from Joseph II., soon undermined the time-honoured monopoly of the
Venetians in the Levant and in Persia. With the Western market it was
otherwise. The German glass had to reach the Peninsula by way of the
Flemish ports, Antwerp and Ostend. What we have known as the Spanish
Netherlands were now in Austrian hands, and the new government was
eager to promote the local industries. The energetic firm of the
Bonhommes (see p. 242), long established at Liége and other
neighbouring towns, competed successfully first with the German and
then with the English glass-makers, just as formerly they had competed
with the Italians, adopting in turn the methods of each.[216]
But in addition to cutting or engraving with a wheel and scratching
with a diamond, there is a third method by which the surface of glass
may be removed. This is by means of hydrofluoric acid, the only
re-agent by which glass is rapidly attacked. The discovery of this acid
is usually ascribed to Scheele, the Swedish chemist (born 1742), and a
date as late as 1771 is given to the discovery. But there is no doubt
that the special virtues of the fumes that are given off when
fluor-spar is heated in sulphuric acid were known before this
time.[217] We have seen how Sandrart, writing before 1675, mentions
that his contemporary Henry Schwanhart engraved glass by means of a
‘_corrosiv_,’ and the statement is repeated with picturesque details by
Doppelmayr. By covering part of the glass with a varnish and exposing
the rest to these acid fumes, Schwanhart produced a smooth pattern on a
dead ground. Certain calligraphic inscriptions on plates of glass,
preserved in German museums,[218] were probably engraved in this way,
but at the time the process did not come into general use. At a much
later period hydrofluoric acid has been largely employed in England and
elsewhere for engraving on glass. Still more recently this method has
given way to the sand-blast. These are both, however, purely industrial
processes that have little to do with art.
We have seen how close was the relation in early mediæval times between
the quest of the alchemist and the art of the glass-maker—that part of
the art above all that was concerned with the production of coloured
pastes. So again at the end of the seventeenth century, when the search
for the philosopher’s stone, the universal medicine and other such
nostrums, had again come into vogue in Germany, the glass-maker’s craft
is once more found in close relation with these ambiguous researches.
This intimate connection is well illustrated in the history of Johann
Kunckel, a man whose career in more than one aspect reminds us of that
of Böttger, the discoverer of the secret of making porcelain. Böttger
may indeed be regarded as Kunckel’s successor at Meissen and Dresden,
for both for a time held official positions as alchemist or arcanist at
the Saxon court.[219] Kunckel was born in 1638 (or perhaps somewhat
sooner) in the duchy of Schleswig. At an early age we find him in the
service of the Saxon Elector engaged in the search for the
philosopher’s stone. He lectured, too, on chemistry at Wittenberg
before a numerous audience. After the year 1677 he entered the service
of Frederick William, the _Grosse Churfürst_. It was at Berlin about
this time that his researches upon the transformation of matter led him
to make inquiries into the colouring of glass, above all into the
mysterious process by which glass could be stained of a crimson or
purple tint by means of gold. That such a colour could be thus obtained
had long been a tradition among the alchemists. In the old books the
secret was dangled before the eyes of the student without being fully
explained. The Saracens were probably acquainted with it; Agricola
mentions the _ritzle_, the ‘_aurum quo tingitur vitrum rubro colore_,’
and Neri refers to the red tint derived from gold.[220]
Not a little of the mystery that so long surrounded this ruby colour
had its origin, no doubt, in the following facts:—1. The full tint is
only to be got when an extremely minute quantity of gold is present. 2.
The colour is not developed until the glass is reheated; on first
cooling the metal is nearly colourless. It is scarcely necessary to
point out how both these properties of the gold pigment must have
appealed to the imagination of the alchemists, and have furnished them
with arguments in favour of their transformation theories. Here, then,
we have one explanation of the interest taken by these early inquirers
in the processes of the glass-maker.
In 1679 Kunckel published his _Ars Vitraria Experimentalis_, a work
which is indeed merely a retranslation into German of Merret’s edition
of Neri (see p. 219), with supplementary notes.[221] Not that Kunckel
here fully discloses the secret of his famous ruby glass—he draws back
at the last moment. Orschall, however, his rival, a man of whom we are
told that ‘he took to polygamy and other irregularities, and died in a
monastery in Poland,’ in his famous tractate _Sol sine Veste_, first
printed in 1684, is somewhat more explicit. _A propos_ of his
experiments with certain ‘handsome vases in the style of porcelain,’ he
tells us that the milkiness of the glass with which the Oriental
porcelain was imitated was only developed on reheating, and the same,
he mentions, is the case with _the ruby colour of the glass containing
gold_.[222]
Kunckel was settled by the Great Elector on the Pfauen-Insel, near
Potsdam, and it was in the glass-houses already erected on the island
that, surrounded with the greatest secrecy, he first made his famous
ruby glass. After a time, however, constrained by what he calls ‘_die
lüderliche Verkrämerung des Rubin-Flusses_,’ otherwise by lack of gold,
he passed over to the service of the Swedish king. He died at Stockholm
as Baron Löwenstjern in 1702.
Kunckel’s name has become attached to certain large ewers and beakers
of ruby glass. He made, too, glass of a deep emerald tint, but
specimens of this are rare. Some of his glasses—and these are perhaps
the oldest—are carved in high relief; others are blown with great
technical skill. Large sums were given at the time for examples of his
work. The vases of blown glass took on classical forms, and were set in
scroll mountings of silver gilt. But these mounted pieces are for the
most part of later date than Kunckel’s time, for glass of this kind was
made at Zechlin and other places near Berlin up to the middle of the
eighteenth century and perhaps later. A tankard of ruby glass in the
British Museum (Slade, No. 869) bears the cipher of Frederick I.
(1701-1713); in the same collection is another fine example (Slade, No.
868), a graceful ewer, set in a rococo silver-gilt mounting.[223] Among
other specimens of this ruby glass in Lord Rothschild’s collection is a
tumbler-shaped beaker, ‘frosted’ on the outside.
As in the case of the porcelain made at a later time in Berlin, the
Prussian glass as a whole is distinguished by its technical excellence
and, compared at least to the bulk of the contemporary work, by a
certain severity of form and decoration.
Much opaque white glass was made in Germany, as in other countries, in
the first years of the eighteenth century. By this means it was hoped
to find an equivalent for the Oriental porcelain, which had not yet
been successfully imitated. At South Kensington may be seen a covered
beaker of this _milch-glas_ elaborately painted with a baroque design;
more often, however, the decoration on such ware is in a pseudo-Chinese
style. Von Czihak has extracted from the contemporary work of a certain
Kundmann, a learned doctor and dilettante, a recipe for making this
glass with human bones; this formula, the author states, he obtained
from Kunckel (_Rariora Naturæ et Artis._ Breslau, 1737). Kundmann
claims for this glass, prepared from bones found in heathen
burial-urns, that it surpassed in whiteness the best porcelain. On one
of his glasses preserved in the museum at Breslau, there is a quaint
Latin inscription. You are asked to offer a libation to those poor
heathens for whom, after suffering both on the field of battle and in
the furnace of the glass-maker, the pains of hell are reserved.
Kundmann had too, in his cabinet, some little glasses on which were
engraved the tobacco-plant and other designs relating to smoking.
These, he declared, were prepared solely from sand and tobacco ash
(_Schlesische Gläser_, p. 62).
There is one important branch of the Bohemian-Silesian glass industry,
of which before ending a word must be said. This is the manufacture of
beads and other kinds of _verroterie_, as well as of glass pastes for
artificial jewellery.
_Paternoster Kügelchen_ were probably made from an early date: the art
may have been learned from wandering Venetians. In Bohemia,
_Betel-Hütten_ (‘bead furnaces’) are mentioned early in the seventeenth
century. At Winterberg, of eight glass-furnaces four are so described.
Here we have the very word (_Betel_, from _Bete_, a prayer) from which
we have formed our term ‘bead.’ But nothing quite equivalent to this
last convenient word ever came into use in Germany. From the word
_Paternoster-Kugel_, when at a later time the demand came rather for
beads for personal ornament or for export, the Germans passed to the
ambiguous expression _Perlen_ or _Glas-Perlen_.
The manufacture of the more elaborate forms of beads by means of the
blow-pipe—the _suppialume_ process of the Venetians—spread slowly in
the north. Doppelmayr (_op. cit._, p. 226) states that the use of ‘a
little copper pipe fixed over a burning lamp’ for making small objects
of glass was first taught at Nuremberg by one Abraham Fino, who came
from Amsterdam in 1630. The Dutch, he says, had been taught the art by
a Venetian. Kunckel, on the Pfauen-Insel, was occupied in making beads
for exportation to West Africa by the newly founded Brandenburg African
Company. In the early years of the eighteenth century the competition
with Venice was keen, but in this branch the Italians seem to have held
their own. Not so, however, in the kindred industry, the manufacture of
glass pastes for artificial jewellery. Before the middle of the
century, certain districts in Northern Bohemia obtained almost a
monopoly in this art. These ‘Bohemian stones’ were made first at
Turnau, by the Fischer brothers. This was early in the century; by 1786
there were, it is said, 443 master-workmen in the district thus
employed. After that time the first place was held by the rival town of
Steinschönau, to this day the centre of the industry (Lobmeyr, _Die
Glas Industrie_, 1874, p. 135).