Art of Glass Trivia Quiz

The stunning Portland Vase is one of the few surviving examples of Roman cameo glass, a technique used to produce highly valuable items reminiscent of the cameos carved from naturally layered gemstones. The original technique entailed fusing one or more layers of light-coloured opaque glass over a darker layer in order to produce figures and motifs that would stand out on the dark background. As can be imagined, the process was difficult and time-consuming, as it was entirely carried out by using drills and wheels - while in modern times the removal of the top layer, except the areas needed for the design, is done by acid etching.

Cameo glass all but disappeared in Europe until the 18th century, when it was brought back by the Neoclassical style that was in fashion at the turn of the 19th century. Part of the collection of Roman antiquities of the British Museum, the Portland Vase was found near Rome in the late 16th century. It is believed to date from the early years of the 1st century AD, the first stage of cameo glass production. Engraved with mythological and historical scenes, the vase (pieced back together after having been vandalized in 1845) inspired the pottery known as Jasperware created by Josiah Wedgwood in the 1770s.

Cage cup is the English name for "vas diatretum" ("reticulated cup" in Latin), a kind of glass vessel that originated in the Roman Empire around the 4th century AD, and is regarded as the most accomplished form of Roman glassmaking. As its name suggests, a cage cup consists of a footless glass vessel enclosed in a cage-like decoration attached to the body of the cup, but standing out from it. This decoration is usually in a circular pattern, and is sometimes complemented by an inscription in letters around the rim. Like cameo glass, cage cups were luxury items, extremely labour-intensive to make. Though the actual process is still debated by specialists, it is believed they were made by painstakingly cutting and grinding a vessel of solid, thick glass.

The artifact in the photo, found near Cologne and held in the Staatliche Antikensammlungen in Munich, Germany (and thus known as the Munich cup), is one of about 50 surviving Roman cage cups. The inscription above the reticulated area says, "Bibe multis annis", meaning "drink [and you will live] many years".

In the Middle East glassmaking was known since antiquity. Major influences on Islamic glassware were Roman glass (in particular the technique of thread application, or surface decoration with hot glass) and the carving techniques developed between the 3rd and the 7th centuries AD in the Sasanian Empire of Persia. Later, in the High and Late Middle Ages, European (especially Venetian) influences became widespread in the Islamic world. While glass for everyday use was simple and cheaply produced, finely crafted, expensive items - decorated with various techniques - were often meant for religious use.

The beautiful artifact in the photo is an Egyptian mosque lamp dating from 1360. The glass is decorated with gilding and vitreous enamel, which produces brilliant, long-lasting colours. While Islamic glassware is occasionally decorated with figures of humans or animals, lamps meant to light houses of worship conformed to the traditional Islamic ban on the depiction of living creatures. Therefore, this lamp is decorated with calligraphy and elaborate geometric patterns in vivid shades of blue, red and gold.

Forest glass ("Waldglas") was produced in Northwestern and Central Europe from the early 11th to the late 17th century in factories known as glasshouses, located in forested areas (hence the name). This particular kind of glass used wood ash and sand as its main raw materials. Roman glass contained natron (a mixture of sodium carbonate decahydrate and sodium bicarbonate): however, in the Early Middle Ages it became necessary to find alternatives to this compound, found mainly in Egypt. While in Southern Europe and the Levant plant ash was used instead of natron, Northern European glassmakers experimented with wood ash.

Natural forest glass was characterized by various shades of greenish-yellow (usually due to iron impurities in the glass mixture), as shown by the 16th-century goblet in the photo. This style of drinking glass, generally used for white wine (whose colour was enhanced by the glass' green tinge), is known as Berkemeyer. It is characterized by a thick, hollow stem covered with prunts, small blobs of glass that made it easier for drinkers to grip the glass.

During the Mughal Empire, which held sway in the Indian subcontinent between 1526 and 1857, culture and the arts thrived thanks to economic prosperity and the patronage of the elite. The art of glassmaking, somewhat forgotten during the Middle Ages, experienced a revival, inspired by Islamic traditions and techniques brought to India by Persian craftsmen that included enameling, gilding and carving. Meant for use in the Empire's sumptuous courts, Mughal glassware is elegant and luxurious, characterized by vivid colours and elaborate floral and geometric motifs.

The most prominent examples of Mughal glassmaking are bases for water pipes (known as shisha, hookah or narghileh), which in the late 16th century became a status symbol among the Indian aristocracy after Emperor Akbar I took up smoking. The gorgeous 18th-century specimen in the photo is made of cobalt blue glass with gilded appliqué motifs.

Glassmaking developed in the historical region of Bohemia (part of present-day Czech Republic) in the 13th century. The glass produced there earned international recognition for its high quality. By the 17th century, Bohemian glass had become a status symbol, and was as expensive as jewellery: magnificent glass chandeliers from Bohemia graced a number of European royal palaces. The most famous of Czech glass producers, Moser (founded in 1857), has become renowned for its luxury items favoured by royals and aristocrats worldwide. The frequently used name of "Bohemian crystal", however, is a misnomer, as the glass produced in the Czech Republic does not contain enough lead to be labeled crystal in the European Union.

Decorative Bohemian glassware is crafted with a variety of techniques, including hand-cutting and engraving. The pitcher in the photo, dating from the mid-19th century, is made of ruby-flashed glass - a type of glass created by coating a mass of molten colourless glass with one or more thin layers of coloured glass prior to blowing. Here, the red glass was partially etched away to reveal images of animals and plants.

Though mainly associated with Murano (Venetian) glass, millefiori is one of the oldest glasswork techniques. Its name means "a thousand flowers" in Italian, which is an apt description of the appearance of the artifacts created with this technique. The earliest examples of millefiori were mosaic beads, found in many archaeological sites. In Roman times, the technique truly came into its own, producing stunning objects that can be admired in many of the world's museums. Lost by the 18th century, the art of making millefiori glass was revived in the mid-19th century, and is still thriving today.

Millefiori consists of long, thin glass canes with multicoloured patterns (known as murrine), sliced into small discs and then fused together to create a multitude of different designs. The bowl in the photo was created around 1880 by Italian glassmaker Vincenzo Moretti (who specialized in the manufacture of millefiori items) for the Venice-Murano Glass Company.

The international Art Nouveau movement, which flourished at the turn of the 20th century, was extremely favourable to the development of new techniques for the production of decorative glass. With its elegant, sinuous shapes inspired by flowers and other natural objects, Art Nouveau glass was meant to be beautiful rather than practical, and the many technical innovations of that period allowed glassmakers free rein in the creation of gorgeous objects. Some of the most significant creators of Art Nouveau glassware - such as Émile Gallé, René Lalique and the Daum brothers - were from France, though important contributions to the craft also came from other European countries and the US. In particular, the city of Nancy in eastern France became a major centre for the manufacture of Art Nouveau glass.

Émile Gallé, a Nancy native, inherited a glassmaking business from his father, and turned it into one of the world's premier producers of Art Nouveau glass in a variety of styles. One of the hallmarks of his art was his innovative use of coloured glass, exemplified by the lovely "Marguerite" (daisy) vase in the photo. Created in 1896 as a wedding gift for Princess Marguerite of Chartres (hence the daisy decoration), the vase is made of multiple layers of blown glass with inclusions of glass and gold dust.

The leading figure of American Art Nouveau, Louis Comfort Tiffany owes his fame to his iconic glass designs, in particular his floral lamps. The son of the founder of the famous New York jewellery house, in 1885 Tiffany founded the Tiffany Glass Company (later Tiffany Studio), which became renowned for its magnificent stained glass windows (some of which graced the White House for some time). His interest in the production of stained glass led him to experiment with ways of creating glass with texture and rich colours to rival its medieval counterparts.

Among Tiffany's most distinctive creations there is Favrile glass, inspired by the iridescent Roman and Syrian glass that he had seen in European museums. Developed in his New York factory by a skilled English chemist, Arthur J. Nash, Favrile glass is a kind of lustre glass with a softer, satiny finish rather than a mirror-like one, achieved by a very complex process. Favrile (whose original name was Fabrile, an Old English word meaning "handcrafted) was patented in 1892, and at the 1900 Paris Exposition was awarded a grand prize. The vase in the photo, displaying some of Favrile glass' distinctive colours, dates from about 1906.

The golden age of glass art ushered at the end of the 19th century by the Art Nouveau movement continued well into the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s, when Art Deco held sway on the international scene. Some of the iconic designers and manufacturers that had emerged at the turn of the century kept their prominent status, enthusiastically embracing the new style - which fused modernity with glamour. One of these was René Lalique, who during the Art Nouveau period had become known for its gorgeous jewellery designs. In the 1920, he turned his attention to glass, contributing his designs to the luxurious interiors of the era's renowned ocean liners.

Lalique pioneered a modern version of the ancient Egyptian technique of "pâte de verre" (glass paste), which used ground glass mixed with a binding material (such as gum arabic), then poured into a refractory mould and fired. In 1909 he received a patent for a new way to mould vases and bottles such as the "Damiers" vase in the photo. Decorated with black enameled rectangles that produce a checkerboard effect (hence the name), the vase was designed in the 1930s. Lalique is also famous for his automobile hood ornaments, which he started producing in 1921 by a process known as glass pressing.