Getty Museum

Prunted Beaker (Berkemeyer)

Date

1650–1675

Medium

Free-blown dark yellowish-green glass with applied decoration

Culture

German or Dutch

Department

Decorative Arts

Institution

Getty Museum

Iron impurities in the local sand, one of the main ingredients of glass, caused this beaker's dark yellow-green color. The rural glasshouses of Germany or the Netherlands, usually located in forests where there were plentiful supplies of wood fuel for the glass furnaces, produced such colored vessels. This beaker, known as a *Berkemeyer*, was a common form produced in Germany and Holland, where the name originated. Similar examples frequently appear in Dutch still life paintings in the 1600s and 1700s. From the 1500s on, white wine was frequently drunk from beakers such as this, as the green glass was thought to enhance the wine's golden-yellow color.

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