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Both China and Bavaria Favored Glass Snuff Bottles ( Part One)

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« on: June 06, 2011, 08:27:02 pm »

Both China and Bavaria Favored Glass Snuff Bottles, byHeiner Schaefer via Arts of Asia, November-december 1988.

Part two is by Emily Byrne Curtis.. Coming soon !

Part one..

In the early days, people in European countries used whatever they found to be handy as snuff containers. Scent bottles, pharmacuttical flasks, small horns or containers for carrying the gunpowder used for flintlock guns. Soon containers were being produced especially for snuff. These developed their own characteristics, varying greatly in form in different countries.
The French seem to have preferred boxes, the Icelanders took their pinch out of small animal horns, the Norwegians used wooden flasks, the Africans thought gourds very practical, but it is really surprising that the glass bottle was favored only in two countries.. Bavaria and China.

The earliest proof of production of snuff bottles in Bavaria dates to an old document from a glassworks in Munich. This tells that in 1678-1780 many impressive glass objects were made, among them snuff bottles of both clear and opaque glass. There is further documentation in several manuscripts from Bohemia, but little is known of either the shape or colors of these early snuff bottles. Dated bottles from around 1800 are found in dark blue, green and brown. They are faceted and often engraved, but only in a rather crude way. Very interesting optical effects were achieved by blowing glass into special moulds. In spite of being rather height priced, these early snuff bottles were produced in Bavaria mainly for the middle and lower classes. Nevertheless, very beautiful and costly bottles were made to fulfill the special requests of rich commoners. At the end of the eighteenth century a glassworks in Austria specialized in making enameled bottles for schnapps and snuff. The decorative motifs (picture #2) were derived from simple symbols such as stylized flowers, blossoming hearts ( representing marriage) and amongst other things guild signs for nearly every occupation.

The nineteenth century was the most important one for the Bavarian snuff bottles. This period has many examples showing the very best quality in glass making and decoration. The art of Venetian glass had been rediscovered and very experienced glass maker, cutter and painters came to Bavaria in the mid nineteenth century. Especially from Bohemia because of better working conditions (picture #3).
 
Generally the different types of Bavarian glass making, all of which are found in snuff bottles, can be classified as follows:

Decoration by the glass maker

1.   Once layer glass in different colors including opaline and opaque variations.
2.   Overlay glass
3.   Threaded glass with bands, festoons, including filigree and millefiori.
4.   Special glass types like aventurine, flecked, mottled or blobbed glassware, marbelized glass.
5.   Differently shaped bottles. Round, flat, conical shaped like violins, hearts, rings, and fists.
6.   Optical glass, blown into moulds to get ribbings, spiral ribbings, air twisted or air bubble effects.

Decoration by other artists

7.   Cutting and engraving.
8.   Staining, mirroring, gilding.
9.   Opaque and transparent enameling, including adding of glass pearls.

All of these various forms of glass making decorations and techniques were very popular in Bavaria, while the Chinese mostly confined themselves to items 1, 2 (picture #4), and 4, and missed out on the very important items 3 and 6. It seems that glass making as a craft was not as skilled or as appreciated in China, whereas the decoration by Chinese artists on glass and other materials was of an extremely high level. In comparison to Chinese objects, Bavarian snuff bottles of the nineteenth and twentieth century demonstrate nearly every design and technique. They have been treasured not only by snuff users and collectors, but also by the glass makers themselves as proof of their artistry and skill.

Colored glass came in a wide range of tones in the mid nineteenth century, the favorites being amber, dark and light gold ruby, dark green cobalt blue, bright blue and the phosphorescent yellow derived from uranium oxide. But pink, grey, light blue and green alabaster (picture #5), opaque colors of a mostly milkish white, or black, were also highly valued.

Overlay glass technique in Bavarian snuff bottles seems to have started in the first half of the nineteenth century with a transparent pink color under clear glass (picture #6), whereas around 1900 double overlays in blue white and pink white combinations were very widely used (picture #7). In our own time very thin overlays have been made with numerous layers.
Under the influence of Bohemian and earlier Venetian techniques, glass makers in Bavaria liked to experiment with threaded decoration (picture #8). Vetro a retiello (glass with small network) is the most complicated form of criss cross diagonal lattice network. Very beautiful and always expensive is filigrama glass, which shows parallel canes with twisted design. Both techniques need the utmost skill, especially in shapes as small as snuff bottles. Well known, too, are bottles with combed or wound decoration. The threaded glass, in all of its different variations and colors, was in perfect harmony with the tastes of nineteenth century Bavaria.

Additionally, special effects were highly esteemed and are seen in snuff bottles. Similar to Venetian aventurine glass, bottles are found with flecks of silver or gold color, which are derived from ground mineral substances added to the glass in a kind of overlay. Very rare and precious are marbelized “lithyaline glass” bottles fashioined in the style of Freiedrich Egermann (Pinture #9).

Often the normal snuff bottle shape, which is rounded and flat, was varied by the glass makers on special request, and nicely decorated bottles were made in the shape of cones, violins, hearts or rings. A particularly mystical forum for a Bavarian snuff bottle is the free blown closed fist which has a symbolic meaning (picture #10).

An important group produced in great quantities but demonstrating special skill, are so called optical bottles (picture #11). The simpler ones show banded or spiral ribbings and are sometimes quite old. Of very decorative design are those bottles fashioned from twisted or air bubbled glass with embedded air pockets between two layers. Moulds are needed to produce all of these types of snuff bottles.

Bavarian snuff bottles were for the most part decorated by other artists after being manufactured by the glass maker. Overlay bottles needed cutting to show all the colors, while bottles manufactured to special order needed engraving or enameling with the owners name and his profession, or with his personal preferences such as animals or flowers (pictur3 #12, 13). While on special bottles the quality of cutting or enameling is masterly, mass produced pieces often show mediocre workmanship.

Production of glass snuff bottles hit its peak around 1900 in Bavaria. There is evidence that, among others, one specialized glass maker blew over twenty eight thousand snuff bottles in four years. One Glassworks in the Bavarian forest near the border with Bohemia dedicated its complete capacity to the production of beer mugs, articles of daily use and snuff bottles. Fortunately, close personal research has brought to light many business records, price lists and the like, which tell in detail the dates, origins, and pieces for glass making, cutting, painting and all other forums of decoration. Such information is an invaluable aid in tracing the development of Bavarian glass snuff bottles.

Two and Three


   
Four and Five



Six and Seven



Eight and Nine



Ten and Eleven



Twelve and Thirteen




« Last Edit: October 28, 2019, 07:13:05 pm by George » Report Spam   Logged

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