Water bowl in crackle glass and mould blown goblet with
coat of arms of the town and Marquisate
of Antwerp, second half of the 16th century
(Inv. 287 et 286 RCh)
Photo : Alain Breyer
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Venetian soda-lime glass
In antiquity, glass was made of a mix of silica, soda
and lime. This is what the Venetians used to make their
famous cristallo or hard-soda glass.
Table services took on a totally new aesthetic form
: elegant and slender shapes, filigrana and millefiori,
walls that become super fine, blown stems etc.
The fame of Venetian glass as the paragon of luxury
glass was to spread throughout all of Europe as of the
16th century; the shapes, decorations, quality of the
materials would all be imitated. In Belgium, the glassmakers
of Antwerp, Hainaut and Liège excelled at this.
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