Getty Museum

Flute Glass

Date

late 16th or early 17th century

Medium

Free-blown colorless (slightly pink) glass with diamond-point engraving

Culture

Netherlandish or German

Department

Decorative Arts

Institution

Getty Museum

Made of extremely thin glass, the delicate flute is decorated with a grape pattern that suggests the wine it would have held. Diamond-point engraved birds, peacocks, dragonflies, and other insects crawl among the leaves and tendrils. Canes of twisted and knotted glass form the vessel's extravagant stem. The demand for Venetian Renaissance glass was so great across Europe that, within about a decade of their introduction, the latest innovations from Italy would be copied *à la façon de Venise* (in the Venetian style) by itinerant Italian workers at various Northern European glasshouses. Although delicate diamond-point engraving originated in Venice based on an ancient practice, this form of surface decoration had especially wide appeal north of the Alps, particularly in the Netherlands, where this flute was probably made.

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