Millefiori bowl

Ever since the early stages of Glass production, Glassmakers fused brightly-coloured Glass pieces together to form mosaic patterns. During the Renaissance, there was a revival of this art based on mould-melted Roman mosaic Glass bowls (of which the Glasmuseum owns several specimens), although now it was in combination with Glassblowing. The technique involved affixing pre-made millefiori (meaning ‘a thousand flowers’) tiles, some of which feature intricate patterns and motifs, to a partly blown Glass Object and setting them with repeated heating. When the Glass was subsequently blown and shaped, the millefiori patterns became slightly distorted. A number of vessels with typically Spanish design features suggest that this technique was practiced in Catalonia (Barcelona), where an advanced Glassmaking industry developed from the Middle Ages based on the Islamic and Venetian models and existed until the mid- 17th century. (Dedo von Kerssenbrock-Krosigk)