Venetian-type Glasses

Venetian glassblowers gained fame when, around the mid-fifteenth century, they discovered how to produce colourless glass, which was often enhanced with decorative elements in enamel. Painted ‘Art Galleries’ and depictions of curiosa cabinets from the seventeenth century often feature a Venetian glass. Although it was intended to keep the secret of the technique of glass-blowing within the confines of Venice, more particularly within Murano itself, celebrated glassblowers were, from the second quarter of the sixteenth century on, lured to other European centres with promises of all sorts of privileges. Venetian-type glasses were blown at Antwerp, among other places.