Enameled Glass beaker

The three camels depicted on this beaker suggest an Oriental origin. Indeed, for a long time it was assumed that beakers of this kind were made in Syria for the crusaders. Correspondingly, these beakers are known as the Syro-Frankish group or, after an artefact located at the British Museum in London, as the Aldrevandin group. Today we are relatively certain that beakers of this kind were made on the island of Murano off Venice and possibly elsewhere in Europe too, while Oriental workshops were seemingly not involved. Although using the enamel painting technique on Glass in this period required highly skilled Glassmakers, the by now hundreds of finds primarily in central Europe show just how widely distributed Aldrevandin pieces were. They attest to the high standard of European Glass production before a major economic crisis in the 1340s and, shortly after, the Plague delivered a considerable blow not only to luxury Glass production for roughly 100 years. (Dedo von Kerssenbrock-Krosigk)