![]() With the publishing of Antonio Neri’s L’Arte vetraria in 1612 and, in the same century, the German glassmaker and chemist Johann Kunckel discovering how to make ruby red glass, we see the manufacturing of colored glass in its many intricate and precise steps finally put on a scientific footing. For the show stopper bright red, selenium is used. For a deep ruby red, the gold content is higher than for the lighter cranberry shade. Of course, this made red glass the most expensive color and, therefore, assured its relative rarity. The solution to making red glass color fast was to add small amounts of gold chloride. And for some reason, red was especially susceptible to this problem. After years of exposure to the sun’s ultraviolet rays, the colors would often fade, darken, or change color. Details of the scenes or persons were painted by employing a paint mixture of ground lead or copper filings, ground glass, gum arabic, wine, or urine (no, that wasn’t a typo).īut early colored glass suffered from a serious flaw: it was found to be lacking color durability. Window artisans needed a full palette of deep, vibrant colors to depict the scenes (most often from the Bible), which would instruct, inspire, or frighten the faithful. These were the magnificent stained glass windows of the great Gothic churches. The lower classes experienced red glass in what one might refer to as the special effects of Medieval Europe. Red was ever more favored and by the early Renaissance ruby-red glass decorated royal courts throughout Europe, achieving a status comparable to precious metals and exquisite fine art. He systematically instructs that oxides of the various metals when added to the glass batch would determine its specific color. In the 700s, the Persian chemist Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hayyan began cataloging techniques for the making of colored glass. Alchemists were convinced that the sorcerer’s stone, that substance by which they believed base metals could be transformed into gold, was of a red glass-like material. As early as ancient Greece, red glass was thought to have magical qualities. ![]() Egyptian tombs, Roman rings, and Byzantine jewelry all exhibit red shades as well as the steady progress in the processing of colored glass. In fact, we have a cuneiform clay tablet from that period, which in very esoteric detail gives the reader a “recipe” for making red glass. ![]() The history of red glass goes back to Babylon nearly 4,000 years ago. But, as you’ll see, this fascination is nearly as old as civilization itself and innate in our species. Whether derived from an old apothecary bottle, decorative glassware, lanterns, signal lenses or whatever cherry red, wine red, blood red, ruby red, cranberry red, it makes little difference. With the increasing rarity of the stuff, it’s a special moment when we beachcombers look down on that piece of crimson joy. For most of us, spotting a piece of red sea glass is pretty much guaranteed to trigger an endorphin wave.
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