CHAPTER XVII 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.

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).