The bucket, rounded below, has the upper edge enlarged into an octagon with the edges pointed. Near the edge there runs a decorative thread in dark blue glass. The handle, transparent and curved, is modelled in a spiral.
Produced in Murano between the sixteenth and the eighteenth century, ice glass takes its name from the wrinkled surface, whitish and slightly opaque, rather like cracked ice. It was made by immersing the piece while still semi-molten in cold water.
The most ancient document citing this type of glass is the inventory of the estate of Bortolo d’Alvise, a master glassmaker of Murano, in 1570.