Лако-красочные материалы — производство

Meanwhile, the glass cutter borrowed techniques from the gem cutter, and the Venetian style of soda-lime glass was copied throughout Christendom, but without the same brilliance of metal. In 1673, the Glass Seller’s Company of England commissioned George Ravenscroft to produce an acceptable substitute, and using up to 30% lead oxide in the mix, a brilliant glass with a high refractive index was manufactured, establishing England as a leader in the production of clear, decorative glass.

For colour, lithyalin glass, with slight metallic inclusions, gave hues ranging from reddish brown through leek green and olive green to bluish mauve, the better to hide impurities in a perfume mix. Hyalinth gave black glass, whilst selenium produced pink, oxides of cobalt and copper blue, cadmium sulfate, antimony and gold chloride yellow and the oxides of chromium and copper ruby glasses. Apart from hiding impurities, dark glass had a useful purpose in matching costumery and fashion at the time, and also in protecting a fragrant mix against ultraviolet light. At first, glass was seen as somewhat of a luxury, and thus its use focused around perfume, cosmetics and toiletries. Four main types of container evolved, the cylindrical or cigar-shaped alabastron, the pear-shaped amphoriskos, the short­necked, globe-like aryballos and the simple jug with a handle and flat base.

By the seventeenth century perfumes had begun to be stored in lightly blown glass bottles, and the eighteenth century saw the appear­ance of pear-shaped bottles in opaque white glass, decorated similarly to porcelain ware. Weight was reduced, and decorative appeal achieved by colour, cutting and applique decoration, which made perfume bottles truly treasured possessions, and worth much to today’s collec­tors.