Fig. 303.—Spanish Glass; Sixteenth Century. (S.K.M.)
Glass was made in Spain in the Ibero-Roman period, as the remains of glass vessels and necklaces have been found in tombs, and the ruins of Roman furnaces have been found in the valleys of the Pyrenees. It is supposed that the art was carried on under the Gothic kings of Spain, and also by the Moors in the thirteenth century, who brought with them glass workers as well as some of the wares of the East. Much of the glass made in Spain subsequent to this date is in imitation of the shapes of Arabian pottery, and this is still the case in much of the modern Spanish glass. Spanish glass of the Renaissance was similar in form and in material to the Venetian work of the same period, and during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the work was in imitation more or less of the contemporary Dutch and Flemish glass (Fig. 303).
In Holland, glassware seems to have been made by Murano artificers, who from time to time settled in that country and brought the secrets of their trade with them. The objects made were naturally imitations of the Venetian glass, and many of the Dutch drinking-glasses were very graceful in design.
In Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brussels, and throughout the Low Countries generally Venetian glass had been imported in great quantities in the time of and prior to the seventeenth century, and it is difficult to say how much of the old glass found at those places is Dutch, Flemish, or Venetian.
Engraving on glass was much practised in Holland, and many Dutch goblets have well executed portraits of kings, queens, and other persons.
Glass making has been practised in Germany, like in most European countries, from the days of the Romans downwards, especially in the Rhenish Provinces, but German examples dating from the Middle Ages are very rare.
Fig. 304.—German Glasses. (S.K.M.)
There is documentary evidence which proves that glass was made at Mainz as early as the beginning of the eighth century.
The earliest example of German glass in this country is a wiederkom, or cylindrical drinking-vessel, which bears the date of 1571, but an older one, of the date of 1553, is preserved in the Künstkammer at Berlin.