Glass that is colored by (1) impurities in the basic ingredients in the batch or (2) techniques of coloring glass by one of three main processes: (a) using a dissolved metallic oxide to impart a color throughout, (b) forming a dispersion of some substance in a colloidal state, and (c) suspending particles of pigments to form opaque colors.

A small, heavy object designed to hold down loose papers. The first glass paperweights were made in the early 1840s in Venice and France, and their manufacture spread rapidly to other parts of Europe and the United States. Glass paperweights ceased to be fashionable in the early 20th century, but the craft of making them revived in the 1950s.

A pocket of gas trapped in glass during manufacture. The term is used both for bubbles introduced intentionally (known as air traps or beads) and for unwanted bubbles created during the melting process. Very small bubbles are known as seeds.

(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.

The collective term for the many techniques (such as copper-wheel engraving and cutting) used to alter or decorate glass when it is cold.

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.

A type of decoration in the stems of 18th-century and later drinking glasses, made by twisting a glass rod embedded with threads of white glass, threads of colored glass, columns of air (air twists), or a combination of all three.

(Italian, “glass with a small network”) A type of blown glass made with canes organized in a crisscross pattern to form a fine net, which may contain tiny air traps.

An air-filled void, which may be of almost any shape. Air traps in stems are frequently tearshaped or elongated and spirally twisted.

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.

A decorative bottle with a stopper, used for serving wines and spirits.

(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 non-shiny finish made by grinding, sandblasting, or exposing the surface to fumes of hydrofluoric acid.

A type of Art Glass made by several American factories in the late 19th century. It resembled the peach bloom glaze on 17thto 18th-century Chinese porcelain such as the celebrated Morgan Vase. Most Peachblow glass had a surface that shaded from opaque cream to pink or red, sometimes over opaque white. Similar glass was made in England by Thomas Webb & Sons and Stevens & Williams.

A type of Art Glass that varies in color from amber to ruby or purple on the same object. This shaded effect is due to the presence of gold in the batch. The object is amber when it emerges from the lehr, but partial reheating causes the affected portion to become red or purple. Amberina, developed by Joseph Locke (1846-1936) at the New England Glass Company in East Cambridge, Massachusetts, was patented in 1883.

A type of translucent yellow-shading-to-pink Art Glass made by the Mt. Washington Glass Company in New Bedford, Massachusetts, between 1885 and about 1895.

A drinking vessel with a bowl that rests on a stemmed foot.

(French, “manner, or style, of Venice”) Glass made in imitation of Venetian products, at centers other than Venice itself. Façon de Venise glass was popular in many parts of Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries.