Corning Museum of Glass

The generic term for glass that is manipulated while it is hot.

The word used to describe the multifaceted wheel-engraved surface that resembles beaten metal.

(Noun) A mass of molten glass (sometimes called a gob) collected on the end of a blowpipe, pontil, or gathering iron; (verb) to collect molten glass on the end of a tool.

A pattern resembling the twisted strands of a rope.

The technique of forming an object by inflating a gather or gob of molten glass on the end of a blowpipe. Traditionally and in modern furnace working, the gaffer blows through the tube, slightly inflating the gob, which is then manipulated into the required form by swinging it, rolling it on a marver, or shaping it with tools or in a mold. It is then inflated to the desired size. In flameworking, one end of the glass tube is heated and closed immediately, after which the worker blows into the other end and manipulates the hot glass.

The technique whereby glass is removed from the surface of an object by grinding it with rotating wheels made of stone, wood, and cork. The first stage of the process employs a stone wheel under a continuous stream of water. Later, wheels of fine-grained stone and wood, fed with various abrasives, are used to grind and polish the surface.

Quartz (chemically pure silicon dioxide), which is usually colorless. From earliest times, glassmakers sought to imitate it.

Deep red glass colored by the addition of gold chloride to the batch. The method of making gold ruby glass was perfected by Johann Kunckel (1637-1703) in Potsdam shortly before 1679.

An enclosed structure for the production and application of heat. In glassmaking, furnaces are used for melting the batch, maintaining pots of glass in a molten state, and reheating partly formed objects at the glory hole.

A popular term for colorless lead glass, which has a high refractive index and consequently is particularly brilliant. In the United Kingdom, glass described as crystal must contain a defined percentage of lead oxide. Today, the word is often used to describe any fine glass tableware.

Any crystalline inclusion present in glass. Stones consist of unmelted particles of batch, fragments of refractory material from the pot, or devitrification crystals. Stones of the first two varieties are generally irregular but rounded; those of the third variety are angular and well formed.

The generic name for decorative windows made of pieces of colored glass fitted into cames and set in iron frames. Strictly speaking, the term is inaccurate because, in addition to glass colored by staining, glaziers used, and continue to use, glass colored throughout by metallic oxide, glass colored by flashing, and glass decorated with enamel.

The process of fusing or shaping glass (usually in or over a mold) by heating it in a kiln.

Smoothing the surface of an object when it is cold by holding it against a rotating wheel fed with a fine abrasive such as pumice or cerium oxide. Glass can also be polished with hand-held tools.

The technique of removing the surface of an object with a rotating wheel fed with an abrasive, or by some other means.

(1) The process of founding or melting the batch; (2) heating pieces of glass in a kiln or furnace until they bond (see Casting and Kiln forming); (3) heating enameled glasses until the enamel bonds with the surface of the object.

An oven used to process a substance by burning, drying, or heating. In contemporary glassworking, kilns are used to fuse enamel and for kiln-forming processes such as slumping.

A movement that began in the United States in the 1960s and has spread all over the world. It is characterized by the proliferation of glass artists who are not affiliated with factories, but work with hot glass in their own studios. The emergence of independent glass artists was made possible by Harvey Littleton and Dominick Labino’s development in 1962 of a small furnace and easy-to-melt glass.

A term popularized in the 1960s for unique or limited-edition objects designed and made in a studio rather than a factory, often, but not necessarily, by the same person.

(1) Several types of glass with newly developed surface textures, shaded colors, or casing, made in the United States from about 1870 and in Europe between about 1880 and 1900; (2) more generally, especially when written “art glass,” any ornamental glassware made since the mid-19th century.

A vitreous substance made of finely powdered glass colored with metallic oxide and suspended in an oily medium for ease of application with a brush. The medium burns away during firing in a low-temperature muffle kiln (about 965°-1300°F or 500°-700°C). Sometimes, several firings are required to fuse the different colors of an elaborately enameled object.

(1) A rounded, hollow vessel; (2) the uppermost part of a goblet, tazza, or wineglass.