Getty Museum

Goblet

Date

late 16th or early 17th century

Medium

Free- and mold-blown light cobalt-blue glass

Culture

Possibly Netherlandish

Department

Decorative Arts

Institution

Getty Museum

Consumers all over Europe coveted colorless *cristallo* (crystal) glass, as it reproduced the brilliance and clarity of precious rock crystal. Although the Venetians tried to protect their monopoly of *cristallo*, issuing orders and threatening terrible punishments to those who emigrated to the North, the manufacture of this glass spread to many parts of Europe in the 1500s. For this goblet, the glassblower first made a vessel ribbed at regular intervals, then pinched together the semi-molten ribs to create a pattern of raised lozenges. This form of glass was apparently popular in the North. Fifteenth-century Venetian goblets of this kind appear to have been exported, as several are found in the Netherlands. In the sixteenth century, *façon de Venise* glasshouses in the Netherlands began to produce their own examples.

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