A small ornamental object of white porcelainlike material, made to be encased in glass. The term is also applied to objects that are decorated with sulphides. They were popular in Europe and America throughout the 19th century. The term “sulphide” is probably connected with the use of sulfur by 18th- and 19th-century moldmakers.

A vessel for serving sweetmeats, sweet food such as preserved or candied fruit and sugared cakes or nuts.

A cylindrical or truncated conical one-piece mold with a patterned interior. The mold is open at the top so that a parison can be dipped into it and then inflated. It is also known as an optic mold.

(from French paraison) A gather, on the end of a blowpipe, that is already partly inflated.

A pattern of spiraling vertical ribs made by inflating the parison in a dip mold with vertical ribs, withdrawing it, and twisting it before continuing to inflate. The pattern is also described as wrythen.

A form used for shaping and/ or decorating molten glass. Some molds (e.g., dip molds) impart a pattern to the parison, which is then withdrawn, and blown and tooled to the desired shape and size; other molds (sometimes known as full-size molds) are used to give the object its final form, with or without decoration. Dip molds consist of a single part and are usually shaped like beakers. Full-size molds usually have two or more parts and can be opened to extract the object. Nowadays, most molds are made of metal, but stone, wood, plaster, and earthenware molds were used in the past and are still occasionally employed today.

A tall, narrow container for spoons. Spoon holders were used at the table from the mid-19th century to World War I.

A small pitcher for serving cream.

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

An iron or steel tube, usually four to five feet long, for blowing glass. Blowpipes have a mouthpiece at one end and are usually fitted at the other end with a metal ring that helps to retain the gather.

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.

The mixture of raw materials (often silica, soda or potash, and lime) that is melted in a pot or tank to make glass. Cullet, as well as minor ingredients such as colorants, can be added to the batch to help the melting process.

A large receptacle constructed in a furnace for melting batch. Tanks, which were first used in antiquity, replaced pots in larger glass factories in the 19th century.

A fire-clay container in which batch is fused and kept molten. The glassworker gathers glass directly from the pot.

A tall, narrow vessel for spills. Spills are thin strips of wood, or folded or twisted pieces of paper, used for lighting candles, pipes, etc.

(from Italian, “cup”) An ornamental dish or cup on a stemmed foot. Tazzas were generally made for drinking, for displaying fruit or sweetmeats, and as purely decorative objects.

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.

The narrow part of a goblet or tazza that separates the bowl and the foot.