17th Century English Facon Venise Wine Glass

Description

Heading : Early English wine glass
Date : 1650-1675
Period : Charles I- Charles II
Origin : Most probably England
Colour : Clear
Bowl : Conical
Stem : Merese over a hollow shoulder and flattened ball knops
Foot : Conical and folded
Pontil : Snapped  
Glass Type : Soda-potash-lime
Size : 15.2cm tall with a 9.3cm rim and an 8.6cm foot
Condition : Excellent. no chips. cracks or restoration
Restoration : None
Weight : 99 grams

References :

This glass has been one of the most enjoyable pieces to research in many years. It has required two trips to London and extensive communications with museums and a gradual process of discovery.

This glass is in the facon venise but the large number of sooty inclusions within the glass (charcoal under 40x magnification) and small air bubbles in combination with the colour and had us believe that this was not Venetian from the outset.

 The glass has a greyish brown hue that you do not observe on any clear Venetian glasses from the 16^th century onwards. We have compared this to all examples on display within the Victoria and Albert museum and the Museum of London and Ashmolean. Not one glass attributed to Venice has the same colour.  However. a couple of Dutch and English examples did. Venetian cristallo is much softer and whiter.

 The combination of conical bowl with trumpet foot is known upon some renaissance Venetian glasses from 1450 to 1600 but the stem structure of this glass is not that early. nor are the knops rib moulded as one would anticipate with Venetian glass. One down seven other possible European glass making centres to eliminate.

We have copies of some of the images created by John Greene for his letters to Morelli requesting glass to be made in specific styles. having obtained copies of he remainder we found explicit instruction for the base of the conical bowls to be flat. to be filled. one assumes to make them easier to clean. This certainly is the case with this glass. We did not find an example of Greene specifying trumpet feet on wine glasses other than a Roemer type.

An email with images and dimensions sent to a number of collections received the ideal response from The Corning museum. “We have an almost identical example”

https://www.cmog.org/artwork/wineglass-763?search=collection%3Ae684af0d9ed911821e918a9fc4371baa&page=39

This was extremely well received however we are not confident in the date they have given 1600-1625 is possible however we believe this to be a little later.

We have all seen the Verzilini  goblet London 1580 engraved by Anthony de Lysle

Note the trumpet foot being used on an “ English glass” as one would expect from a venetian emigre (via Antwerp.)

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O5133/wine-glass-lysle-anthony-de/

Again we will all be familiar with Royal Oak goblet attributed to Buckingham in 1665 . This also has a trumpet foot. made in England at a time when the Venetian fashion was for flat of slightly conical feet.

 The hollow and complex knop structure will be observed on early English baluster glasses and this style was certainly specified by Green in his letters. We believe on balance this is contemporary with Greene.  We are however confident in the English attribution.