ge:nei·allv n•cci'Pied axiom that when glass-·en;;raving firs! came !o be pr:1cticcd

the 16th ccJrtu:ry, the of the art were men who had flrst learned the art of hard­stcmt:-e:ngra,;ing, Tirat this axiom is true will be ar;f!;11Ca1atcr on in this article. It seems cxlrcmc-

ly that a similar link between hard-sto:ue- has existed

the connection is more difficult to demonstrate for the earliest periods, where evidence is oncnv

Glass was in the 18th u•vn:&Sly in "''VIJL Sir Flinders Petrie refers to a number of so "decorated" mc;reilv with at Tell el Amarna. 2

he does not make it dear whether this cnl'r:Ivin<' is done \Vith a or

means of a instrument. It has been

L This article is based on a Circle in London in ::Vian:h,

e~:;:;~ti~::;;:~;~~~ <Uid a~J;:,;~~rl~S. ft and second U 2, Sir \V. M. _Flinders

don, 1894, p. 27 and Pls. XIV,

read to the Glass has been consid­

of fresh in-

'l'ell el Ama:rna, Lon-53; XV, 133.

tha! WlHXJH:n,;ravnrg was prac-ticed at this of a bowl of

_Petrie rather inclined to the view that such work was done \vith an emery mc:nt:uy obsidian bowl in the collection has been adduced in smon.ort

at the 18th work of this was carried out

abrasion.' It bears an im:erintiion relating

Corr:ingMuscum of the Winfield

3.

Cominv. HJ57, p. 30, ~o. 4. W. M. F1iru:l0..:rs Petrie, 'The A.rts and

Ancient and I ,ondon, 1908, whew reference is made on diorite

Gloss Col-

ploug!Jed out with a point 1/ H50th fm inch \vide.

5. Glass the Aru:irmt ·world, pp. 38-~39, 1'\o. 50.

83

to Ahrnose (c. 1546-1525 B.C.), the first king of the 18th Dynasty.

The present writer was at first of the opinion that such pieces were at least partially en-graved by rotary his observa-tions mainly on a ring-bezel in the collections of the Victoria and Albert :\.1uscum (Fig. 1). This came from the 1904-05 excavations at Deir cl Bahri and is engraved with of the prenomen of Rameses. 6 On :first examination this piece seemed to show in

the "characteristic ends of wheel cuts/' it was evident that much of the work had been done with a point. Fur­ther investigation, however, combined with an examination of a dozen or so pieces of

of the 19th to 22nd in the British 1vlusemn col1ection, has convinced him that these were pmbably wholly point-engraved. The only certain traces of ro-

work on these of glass, and on one or two carneHan consisted of circular which had in some instances been used as the basis of hiemglyphs or other motivcs. 7 That this fact is not without

may be seen later. The only un-mistakable traces of seemed to occur on some or the like in tur-

and blue glass dating from the '1ate" penvu. These showed long cuts which appear to have been made by a thin wheel of large diameter.

Further the rc!>mn. the grinding of glass

6. 671-1905, by tlw Egypt Exploration .Fund. Inscribed: meri (en Amen)," P"'""mably for Rameses B.C,).

7. Kg. on a blue glass emblem with the cartonche of Amenhotep III (e. 1400 B.C,), ::Vfuseum No. 1920. 6~12. 175; and on tl1c carnelian rings No. 51577, prob­

of the 18th dynasty, and .54600, which however, pn•baJblyof the '1atc" period. I am mueh indebted to

H. James of the of Egyptian A:~,Ji:;:·~~~ at the British Museum for me to e: thi.-; and the pieces mentioned in the note, and for giving me his views on the subject,

8. Kg. 6234 and 61105, the first of h1rquoise, second of blue

84

by rotary abrasion had a slightly different em­pnasJs. Here the work was on the whole con­cerned rather with the hollowing out of more or less solid or vcith the 11p of decorative motives by moulding processes (as, for example, the radiating petal motives on a family of the ear·lie:st of which so far known date from not later than 700 B.C.)H '\fo doubt this was done with some such abrasive as emery) known in Egypt at least as early as the 18th

v'm"' "''" "" In had been cut by the use of tubular metal and it is ex-tremely probable that the same technique was in usc in the first millennium B.C. further East.12 One glass vessel which has been hol­lowed out some such means is the famous "Sargon vase'' (Sargon 722-705 B.C.) in the British Museum, the inside of which bears the marks of rotary grinding. 13 Of even greater interest, however~ is the fact that it bears engraved on the shoulder the car­touche and the of a lion. Unfortunately, the surface-condition of this glass makes it im~. possilbleto decide how this engraving was done. A series of brilliant circular depressions which form the lines of the work, although appe:anng at first sight to be a succession of drill-holes,

9. Axel von Saldern, "'Glass Finds at (',.ordion," Journal of Glass Studies, I, 19.59, pp. 23-ritL

10, Petrie, Arts and Crafts, 72-73: A, Lucas, how-ever, considP-red the Egyptian to be more likely powdered quartz sand (Ancient F.gy])tian Materials and Industries, London [3rd ed.], 1948, pp. 90-93).

11. Petrie, Arts and Crafts, p. 72; Lucas, op. cit., p. 93.

12, One ClJt-from-the-block piece was previously thought to have embedded in it the head of a copper drill (Von Saldern, p. 33, 1\o. I, 14, Fig. 12). On sub­sequent exanlinab"on at The Coming Museum of Glass it was found that the "drill" was merely packed dirt

13. See D. B. Harden, Glass and Glazes, in ed. C. et A of VoL II,

pp. 3:J6, 299 and Pl. C,D. the bore of the tlmn of the neck,

workman employed some e~p:h:~i~~~o.'~s~off-centre bits aq the gouges (wa-l'zi!) 1: S. Howard Hans-

10,'50, p. 82, Pl.

FIG. Fragmentary ring of opaque-blue glass, Deir-el llahri. XlXth or XXth Dynasty (c.

1300-1150 B.C.). Victoria and Albert Museum.

seem on closer to be due to the pe­culiar form of decay which affects the and which is visible over the surface of the vessel where no is likely to have taken place. That such work have been done by means of rotary abrasion in the 8th century B.C. seems amply demonstrated by the fact that !vlesopotamian cylinder-seals of far earlier dates bear the marks of drilling with solid and tubular and indeed of with the whecl.14 At Tell in private houses dating

14. H. Cylinder Seals, London, 1939, pp, 5-6. Of a or so seals in the British Museum dating from the IIIrd Dynasty (about 2100-1800 B.C.) some on examination showed evident traces of drilling (e.g, 21123, 89284 and 89215), while others seemed to have partly worked ""ith rotating wheeJs (e.g. 89579, 89578), The wriler is indebted to Mr. E. Sollberger of the Department of \Veskm Asiatic Antiquities at the British Museum, for giving him facil­ities for examining the Sargon vase and a number of cylinder-seals.

Frc. 2. Hellenistic g-ravestone showing engraver" s equipment. (After Feldhaus.)

FIG. a. Miniat-ure fram the "i\Jerulel'schen Briider­buch"' showing "~Hans Paternostrer." Late 15th centun;. Stadtbibliothek, Nr,<rernbliTI(.

to the Dynasty of Sargon of Akkad (i.e., about 2500 B.C.) actual cngraving-instrmncuts were found. "They were with some completed and some unfinished cylinder seals ... into a small wbich evidently contained the stock-in-tr·ade of a jeweller or travelling craftsman. There were several gravers and small-edged and one piece which is best e"vlained as a borer belonging to a bow-drill. It had a spatnla-shaped cutting-edge and its stem was square .in section, so that it could be

stuck in the wooden shaft to which the bow,;trimr imparted the revolving motion; ... "'15

The use of removable bits in dynastic Egypt is attested by the finding in Tutankhamen's tomb

85

of a oow-opcn,ted fire-drill with this contriv­ance.H> The drill-head is no

am1lo;gm1s to the flint drill-heads found

of a circular be executed by means of a drill and actuated a bow, cuts

made with a wheel an ap,pa.raltus where the rotatir1g s1pindle is held in a fixed pos:itkm and the !o be cut is appli.ed

this the head, In means a horizontal an,an:gemt,nt in which the

spindle is held between two All later ennir>m.fmt of this character is ancaiJt!"e:d in the horizontal altl.>outgh it is

from later situations jm;til1alblc to assume in this

were ar­ranged in the horizontal sense. No such appara­tus appears !o have but there is one

of evidence which may be taken to throw on how it looked. There is in a nriv:ltc

collection in the tombstone of a Hellen-

istic Mrms, who died at Philadel-

in of On this stone there is the of his craft (Fig, 2), Although one end of the stone is broken away, the main of the tool can be reasonably well discerned, There is a bow

\villi a which takes a turn about a hori-zontal spindle: its vertical the

spindle terminates in a intended to a disc at the end of the spindle,

seen turned to the front in forced persp>ective, with the end of the visible at its mid-

86

gl<>hiJiai form is intended,

re<YaJ'dE:d as the wheel­sh:!p<:d or end of the appara­tus, Centuries later the Frenchman J, Chardin gave a description of the Persian of his time: HI ''The Persian make their wheels of two of emery to one of lac ("laque") , . rotate these wheels hafted

on to a circular mandrel 1 with a bow which hold in one while with the other hold the stone the wheel , , , , When

want to the stone, they put in of this wheel another made of red willlm¥. which they throw or The seal-en­gravers the how and a very small cop-per wheel with emery. use Persian and Indian emery .... "Similar has been used in the Near East and India until cninpar<t-

modern refine-ments include a to work the bow and so the artist the use of his se<:on.u and a to maintain the irr•p<:tu:s

by the pull of the bow, 20

It is that this type of equipment started as a drill

p, 88), and that it was gradually appre­ciated that the material to be cut could be ap-

!o the as well as

engnwing-whecl of later times. This

head would the "bouterolle" of

19. Voyages du Checalier Chardin e11

Perse. pcrsans font leur roue de deux ct d'une de . ns tonrnent ccs

avec un arcbL't r autre, contre

l n"on'iJ, venlen!c n,;];,Ja i1s mcttent roue unc roue faite de sm.1le ils jettent de l' etain calcinb on du

eia,venrs des cachets se scrvcnt de l' archet roue de t;uivre avec remeri. Tis ont

de l' €meri de et de l' emeri des In des . . " cit. C. I .amm, Mittelalterliche Glii~·er ... aus dem

Berlin, I, 1930, p, 516, 20. Feldhaus, op. cit., CoL 2 t I.

the 18th (sec

p. It is interesting that Laurent K atter comments on the of the ancient en­

gravers for this instrument,21

A stone once in the po,ss<JSs.ion

of shows the half-fin-ished work of another Hellenistic ge:m-engntv­

er. Here the pai.tm11

m:Ighcd in incision') vvith is of some interest because

the is and

it is a reasonable inference that the stone was cut in in a often held to be a centre of glctss-ccttting; and

Of the eqllii>rwcnt used in Roman times we seem to have no states that smnc ""torno teritur," which implies some

instrument. 23 :Much 1st

llc'w'ev,er, seems indeed to have been turned on some sort of in which the is ro-

character which had in and not the

cnt!ravirt!'-•Nh,eel proper. It is indeed pr,ob:1bly

kind of

an open mind to the possibility

e<pliplmotnt of this was some

tool which could be

ada:ptc:d as drill or in

accordance with the needs of the work in hand. is also the source of our of the

abrasives "sand of

from

available at this time. He mentions -" which is emery, and ''sands"

and and certain

Cypn.s and and final

2L Laurent 1'raitt? de la M6thode A11tique de Gra-ver en Pierres cmnp.ar£'e t;mec la Mi'tlu>de rnoderne London, 17.~4, p. 4. Althm>gh in French, was of German orlgln.

22, op, cil,, pp. 400-40L Figs. 207-210. 23. Plinius Secundus, llisto-ria Naturalis, XXXVI,

19.3, KOster, "Technischcs aus dcr anliken

~~::1~~~~~~;: Berichle aus den Preussischen K-unvt-" XLI!, 1921, PP- 104 ff.

24. See

stone from tmmitce.1" l'heonhncstJJS, in his llis-

a1so eniel·v.-'"

With the decline of the Homan Ernpirein the

died out both because

prccondi:tion for its existence - a fine qualil:y the nature

and because In the East it

never to trace en-

in unbroken continuity th,-m,:!Eh Sassanian to Islamic timcs.17

In the 9th- l.Oth there in Persia and also in a school of which i.s not d valled

until the end of the 17th cerrtm:y m Eu:ro1pc."'

All this work may be SUJ?P<Jsed to have been executed with of the

described later hy Chardin, In the

to be decorated cllttin<' or engrav­

ing, gems were still cnl?:r:av<Ja. hc,w<JH<r crude-and substituted for

the natural hardstone. 29 It i.s to be

that the '"l''ipmcnt

shines

25. Plinius Secundus, op. cit., XXXVI, 9-10. Sec A. Lucas, op. cit., p. 9L

26. see Earle F, C, llicha,-ds, Theo;oluvzsi,u.s on Storws, Ohio, 1956, pp.

27. Von Saldem, op. cit, pp. 44-45. 28. See Prudence "Islamic Relief Cut Glass;

a of Glass Studies, III, literature thf'.rc cited.

j~h~~~~::~~t';''~;,1"'11~Gjl,~as:e:und Gemmenschnitt im l!fL 1-2, Kameen, Berlin,

Rc Deside­Milan, 1962,

~·:~;~~f;;;~t;,however, makcii no mention of this hi;;; d()wn and in a manne:r have been

'"'""'"' in pn,-dynaMtlc For the most recent account, sec Treatise of TheOJ1h-ilns, translated wiih Introdud:ion and Notes G. Hawthorne and Smith, Chicago, pp. 189-191, Gems,"

87

the same general character still in use. City at Nuremberg is a 15th century miniature showing a maker of rosaries at work

3). The details of his equipment are not at all clear, but his right knee appears to be apply-

pressure to the head of his spindle, and it has been that he is in fact drilling the beads held at the other end of the apparatus. 31

A machine of this sort~ however1 would require very little adaptation to turn it into an engrav-

That gems were being wheel­cut at this date is indicated by Antonio Averlino Filarctc's treatise Trattato delT Architettum, which was finished in 1464. Among the mis­ce1Janeous information surveyed in his hook, Filarete refers to gems in a passage of dialogue:

"' ... Tell me, how are they cut, if they are so hard?'

'TI1e method would be difficult to explain to someone who had not seen it with his own eyes. As I have told you, it is done with the diamond­point and with wheels of lead and emery: and some do it with a little bow ("archctto").' ""

The wording of the passage is somewhat oh­scu.re. In particular~ the word "archett<( might refer either to a bow operating the spindle of the engraving-apparatus, or it might imply some sort of bow-shaped saw such as was in fact used to cut gems. What seems definite, hnwr·vcr is the usc of lead wheels and of emery

.'31. G. K Pazaurck, op. cit., interprets this ::V1S. as sho'Wing the "Paternostrer" giving his beads their ::;phcrieal form or perhaps 6nifihing pr polishing them ("Abdrehen von Rosenkranzkugeln'·'). He implies !.hat the heads arc of hardstone, but there is no evidence for this. A somewhat similar picture of a chaplet-maker in Venice in the 18th century shows very similar appara­tus in usc for making: heads of what is dearly wood. Feldhaus, op. cit., interprets the "Paternostrer's" activ­ity as that of entting his beads from the plank held in his lefl hand, by mean.<> of a multiple drilL This appears to eut a circular piece from the wood whilst at the same time piercing a central hole: no doubt the plank would then be turned and worked from the opposite side, 'l11is seems to make more sense than Pazaurek's interpreta­tion.

32. A. llg, Ed., Quellenschriften fUr Kun.stgeschichte und Kunsttechnik, Neue Folge, III, Antonio A-cerlino Filarete's Tt·actat Uber die Baukunst .. . , ed. hy \V. van O{'ttingen, Vienna, 1890, p. 659. .

88

as abrasive. combination Inight be used only for the plane-cutting of hardstones, but a late 15th century text, this time from Germany, fills Jn some detail which appears to point unequivocally to gem-engraving. This states that for gem-stone cutting a machine ("Gctczcugk"~"Zcug") is necessary, together with its five discs of lead, pewter, copper, steel and limewood.:~:{ This seems to imply inter­changeable working-heads, ranging from the hardest (steel) to the softest limewood, for polishing.

The cussed has

propelling mechanism so far dis­been the bow-lathe. The earliest

form of this shows only the bow as the motive force, and it seems most likely that the bow was drawn first forwards and then backwards, to give a reciprocating motion. The addition of a flywheel might mean that when the spindle was set in motion in the one dircdion, the flywheel would sustain this impetus, the cord of the bow being then s]ackened and d:raV\JU back to its original position ready for a second thrust. There seems to be no evidence, however, that the bow-lathe with flywheel was in use in late­medieval the scene on which we must now focus our attention, since it was presum­ably there that the apparatus evolved which we shall later see in its developed form.

The conversion of reciproca] to continuous

33. K von Czihak, Schlesische Gliiser, Dreslau, 1891, p. 126, n. 1. The passage runs: "VViltu dy edelin steync poliren, so mustu zcu dem irstin cyne mole adir get­czeugk, dorezn V scheybin und syne spillen gehoren; dy irste scheybe sal scyn a us bley, dy andir von tc:t:ehen (Zinn), dy dritte von coppir, dy virde von stole, dy V. von lindenn holtcze adir von rewst'hin lcdir. Alzo hosht den getczewg.-So du dy edelin steyne poliren wilth, so saltu sy zcu dcm irstin an eyne spille ki::iten.-Du salt den koth (Kitt) alzo mach.i.n ... "That is: "lf you. wish to polish precious stones, then you need in the first place a miU or machine, to which belong five wheels and their spindles; the first wheel shall be of lead, the second of pewter, the third of copper, the fourth of steei, the fifth of lime-wood or of chamois-dressed leather. So you have the machine. If you wish to polish the precious stones, then ym1 must in the first place cemcnl Lhcm to a peg.-You should make the cement in the foHo;;v'ing way .. ,"

movement i.s a matter which seems to

u"'i\"'li'"' the attention of the mechanics ""'·''""Y· An obvious way of obtain~

this motion is by the usc of a cnmk:-h:mtlle, but whereas in the Ivliddlc this device was

of as, for in-

StanCe: a );LUHmUH.U, an1narentlv ap­to the function of nrnclnci11 ro-

movement such as that work of This may have been due to the difficulties of a suitable wheel-ratio between the and the spindle. The second device which may over-come the of motion is the crank by a treadle. Here the

the foot in the treadle is much less than that used the arms the crank-handle, The crank used in the brace-and-bit seems to have

evolved in the course of the 14th the first illus!ra!ion of it from the 15th century. A illumination of about 1430 shows a crank worked a hand-operated connecting-rod, and another picture from the same "'\fS. illustrates a mill-mechanism worked by a double-crank to which arc attached two

worked trea-

although this ci<3UI'IV disccrniblc.34

of the is not At the end of the same

~er•hn.,; this pr<lhlem of cortvertin to continuous motion tcntion of no less a person than Leonardo da Vinci. On one sheet of in the Codex Atlanticus ~tym we sec not a vertieal saw by a cranked wheel, but two sets of each of which he calls '"a

("tomio"), one of them a crank by a and a large driving

the other a smaller wheel by

34. On these mechanical rand Gille, ":f\,..faehincs" in pp. 652-4.

:)5. G. Piumati, Etl,, Il Codice Atlantica di J ... eonardo da Vinci, VoL of Plates HL Milnn, 1!104, Pl MCCCV. 381l\.b.

a crank and the power source of which is not being trans-ferred from this wheel to an even smaller one, frorn which a appears to run. This ratio of wheels would seem a suitable one for

rectuiJred for hardstone If the wheel of this appa­hrrm<>liot below the wo:rkirt!! SJ.Irhwc,

treadl.e, the essentials pm·fccted emrravinl!-vvhecl would be all

Whatever the form of in use dur-eeJ>lu.ry--andof this the indications

so far a glimyJse-tlhm·e can be no doubt whatever that

FIG. 4. Two of "lathes" and one of a saw, Leonardc0 da Vinci.

89

rep1·ese,tting a stm;te-et1!'rr.tver Victoria and Albert 1\.luseum. lost· Amman.

Crown Cctm,<rik:ht

in the HtJff~UJlldian Court and elsewhere. :'ttl

With the advent of the 16th the tun; becomes much clearer In 1568 there ap-

a or book dif-ferent with wood-cuts One of these shows "Dcr Stciusclmcider'' ("The Stcme-cnt~rn<ve•r:') pntcti.cirtg his craft in front of

Here at last is repre-reacSorlah]y ctJ!n]JreherJsh·c detail the

of the gem-engraver, Below the

is a flywheel actuated by a treadle to a crank: from it a continuous hand nms two holes in the uuwkin•rr-

36. Sec, e.g., Gchhart, op. cit., pp. !26-7, 133 1L, vm ff.

90

surface up and over a pulley set a turned

The vertical fixed to the wtJrkin:~-sur!fac:e. exact details of this of the not clear, but there is no mtlSG±Ktlllg

main features. On the bench is

stand the different wheels which may be fitted into the the demands of the work in hand. Two of them are shown loose on the bench, their thickened ends where they into the spindle clearly visible. The is now free to usc both his hands for the work to the wheeL Beneath the cut is the

"! cut on my wheels and small such as and (?) dia-m.ond emerald, and good

the coats-of -anns of many a such as are set in and many other coats-of­arms besides." This is supplemented from a literary source when in his famous 15th sermon "On l;Jass:mftki:ng,

in cutter has his wheels."37

mentions that '"the stone­

and little

The relevance of this pitotUJre of the stone-equipment becomes dearer when

one turns to the earliest on known in l<:t.rr•ne since the Roman The exact of the of this art is not

known, hut it is that the first pe:rscm,ility to make his name in it was a

before he was enQ'r,av,er. This man was L'tsrmr

in 1586 left his home town of in Li..i.ne-burg to turn up in in 1588, In 1601 he was there given the title of "ll11f>erial

!!ern-f:n!!rU\'er"38 1606 he had transferred his services to where in that year he is

oder vom Glass.macbm,

fol. recto, 38, R. Schmidt, Das G!as, llcrlin and I ,eipzig, (2nd

ed,), 1922, p. 281,

referred to in documents as ''Electoral Saxon gem-engraver."" In of 1608 he is de-seJrib:ed as '"minded to to "40 and in October of that year he is in fact found in rnwt:te with the title and his

to

described in the Saxon records as lmvi1w ,gn<vc:d four "Cirristellin Tafficn"

oonnm> of members of the rul-and since these which

a number are albeit of Princes other than those named in the Dresden are of it is a reasonable sup­position tbat Lehmann was ah··eacly engJ:aving

in Dresden at this date. In 1609 Lehmann obtained an Impe1rial Privil<ege him alone tho

he many years

industrious and no sma11 expense, dis­covered the rut and business of gl:ls>:-e:agra•vir:tg, and it into "44

There arc nevertheless grave to Lohmann as the first engraver to

transfer his art fro:rn hardstones to In a letter to the Duke of dated he wro!e !hat the Duke's Wilhelm V, '"had me the art of stone- and

39, VValteK Glas- und Stejnschnitt nm 1600," Siichsi.vche Geschichte, 55, 1934, p. 109, n 21; cf. 20 aml R 22,

40. Holzhauscn, op. cit.., 110, R 24. 41. des :~mnrnlungen

des Kaiserhauses ., XIX, p, XCIII, No. 16878.

42. Holzhauscn, op. cit., p. 109, R 19. 1 (the Elector Christian

E. Kris,

.;~;~:,,~~,~~,~~~~~ ein zur Friih-L Glaschnittes," Anzeiger

Ge:rmanischen Nationalmuseums., Nu,mnb•org, 1963, pp. 116-131.

44. von T eutsche Acade:mie der Edlen Bild- -und 1675, p. 345.

cn!W>vine in my "·Iii

It of course, possible that by he \vrote, Lehmann of the two arts as vumBcuv the same. This would be rnore if there were not in exist-ence two which appear to date from a time well before we hear of Lehmann

at re>Jresentati<Jn of

which was recorded in an of 1595 as been in 1590 - two years after Ldunann had arrived in Pr:o<';"e.

W c know of a at Dresden before still in

is the famous beaker in the

Museum of New York47

Count Wilhelm von

Clara von to his fiancee

in 1592.

that since G. E. Pazaurek re,!Sonaibly ct•,;mou

came from it was more

P"Ju:"u''Y cne:raved in the South than in Bruns­and that since the mount did

rru"ue naiHCimrK, and the engrav-had certain affinities with later work alrnost

euna.m1cv done in Tlm1·ingh>, it was most to have been executed in the latter rcgum. 1'\;either of these bears a close resem-blance to tbe well-authenticated work of and the of evidence seems to that

Lehmann was not the first to revive the art of

p. 87, n, 4: GHstav E, Alt-thiiring•ex (;!a;isclmtt!," Glastechnische

Berichte, scc'!ns to that the letter was to i,,J;ih,:],;; V.

46. Holzhausen, op. cit,, pp. 87, 108-9, H. 17 and 18, and 2,

47. R. Sclnnidt, Die Gl<Mer der Smnmdw;g A•fiihsar.", Keue Pl. 13.

n.d. (1927), pp.

48. Pazaurck, Gl.asschnitt," p" 825. 49. If Lehmann's statement to Duke :\faximilian I is

to be taken at its face value, this may have

91

Lehmann's importance for the purpose of this article, however, is that in his person we see the gem- and glass-eng:ra vcr unmistakably united, the one function from the

other. His history justifies the inference tl1at the equipment of the glass-engraver was in all essentials that of the hardstone-engraver: and that where we cannot with certainty point to clear evidence as to the nature of the glass­

engraver's tools at a given period, we may rea­sonably infer that it closely resembled those of the hardstonc-cngravcr at the same period.

This inference is borne out by a number of cross-checks at differe~t points.

The late 17th century print illustrated in Fig. 6 shows a glass-engraver at work,50 and al­

though the artist has forgotten that the driving­belt of the machine should pass below the level of the bench, what is shown above it seems reasonably well-observed. Here one may re­mark the "tower" of the apparatus, with the driving-pulley enclosed in a square structure, apparently equipped with two screws on either side and at the top. From the spindle projects the actual engraving-wheel, and numerous al­ternative wheels are seen on the table in front of the artist, who holds the tall-stemmed goblet in both hands to cngra vc it. On the table to his left arc two srnall containers) each with a la or the like resting in it. These no doubt con-

taken place in Bavaria. Tn this connection lhc name of Valentin Drausch rlesf'rves mention, although he is never referred to as more than a gem-engraver (Hol:.r.­hausen, op. cit., pp. 91-3, 104-8, R 8-1.1). A perhaps even stronger candidate is Zacharias Peltzer (or Beltzer), whom Sandrart mentions as Lehmann's colleague in Prague and apparently also as an engraver of glass (op. cit., p. 316), and who was seal- and crystal-en­graver to Maximilian of Bavaria from 1576-96 (Holz­hausen, op. cit., pp. 94-5). See also :.Vfeyer-Heisig, "Caspar Lehmann: ein Beitrag , .. "

50. In the Coming Museum, A virtually identical print, in everything except the accompanying text, is illustrated in Erich Mcycr-Heisig, Der NUrnberger Glasschnitt des 17. ]ahrhunderts, Nuremberg, 1963, Fig. 1, and is there shown as being by Chrisloph Weigel and dating from about 1680. The Coming print does not come from Weigel's Stiindebuch of 1698.

92

Fm, 6, \V oodcut showing a glass·engraver at work. Probably by Christoph Weigel. Nuremberg; late 17th century. Corning Museum of Glass.

tain the abrasive, mixed "\.vith oil, Vitith which from time to time he smears the engraving­wheel. On the shelf and cupboard to his right stand further glasses, either finished or waiting their tum for decoration. Among them may be recognized types characteristic of Nuremberg, where tbis no doubt originated, and where the leading 17th century school of glass­engraving was situated, The essential correct­ness of this print is confirmed by an achml sur­viving engraving-head preserved in the Muse­um at Liberec, in Czechoslovakia (Fig. 7). This has been dismounted from its original working­surface and remounted on a block of wood. It is dated 1697, and inscribed with the names

Scholzoph" and "Christo£ Heltzel," but whether these arc the names of the makers or of the users, there is no indication. If these

Fxc. 7. dated 1697 Bohemian. Liberec Museum, Cz:cc''""'lm;ak:ia.

Fxc. 8. Engraving-head, dated 1697 Bohemian. Liberec Mw;eum.

seem to have behind them. The mecha­

men were jn fact en:graver:s,

left no other name nism of this engrctviJng-hcad be seen

and agrees in every parti•cullar descJciption of such a

of Oeconom .. l>">'che

later. 51 With the the article on

it is detail of the eqJJipmt:nt. as follows: 6ll

for every dc1;cription runs

"Irnnled'ialely on the surf ace of the a, stands a c d made of turned on which is fastened with screws an iron or brass housing The two walls e d and h d of this hear in the middle a small iron axle ('Welle'), or so-called f g. It must be made of ternp•cred

and its JO<Irnals I'Zaolfen:') must be made

... , 18 ~ar•~~tii1c~J;~e' -:'zc~!~~~:~~~~;;~d:nc:ycl.o-first referred to in this connection

Nuimi\ereer Glasschnitt ... , p. 20. cit., pp. 7.51-2.

FIG. 9. Engraving-head, dated .16.97. Bohemian. Libe-rec Museum.

93

from hard steeL These run in f and t in a lead bush which is from two lead i and k. The two when hear-•a·•uui~. The aim of this jmtlqlositkm of the

two leaden checks is to press the upper cheek nearer to the if use of the 1nachinc

the f wears out, and this 1neans spimllc f g once more vvith the

steadiness. For this purpose a small

screw e is connected \>v'ith the leaden cheek k, and means- of this the artist can force the

upper cheek k nearer to the lower one i. The same holds with the two cheeks of the

he1uirrg t in the wall h d of the At g

spilndle f g has a conical and in this there is a slot cut out. For the artist inserts in the

f g the conical rear end -u -v, of his and fixes this wheel

94

the more so;mc!Je. in that a

hon u of the wheel latter ... "

is cmnplete.

in the said of the on the conical rear por­

fits into the slot on the

later en­

a of Stockholm

hovvcv<'r. the equiprr•ent in every detail to the

conti.nuation of

Oecorwmische Ertcr1'Cirrpi1idi•0: in the

"On the spiindle f g there is an iron l, on t.he rirn of which a cord l n

with a wooden driv­m ·n. The iron shaft

o p has at q a so-called crooked he;uirre a crauKJ to and to a wooden treadle s, is

attached a leather means of this treadle s the artist sets the machine in motion

dPnn''"'n" it with his fooL" The Stock-adds a in the

interpr•eta.ticm of the Liberec wheel which one would not guess from Kruenitz, Frmn the finial cnrw;rrin·t< the a horizontal rod nnriccts

this slot is threaded a torrgr;e intended to rerrulatc the oil and mixture which forms the

rmcv1mt it from

That the Liberec appa;rabCis orighmlly equiplred in this way seems dear

the holes which mounting the finiaL

the knoh sur-

Kruenitz an account of how the en-

Svenska Stvddmi:n, 1936, pp. it is

that this machine wa'i bnJu,;h! from to Sweden and in the 1870's 1881-1931. It half of the HJth century.

54, Seitt:, op. I-L Strehblow, Der Schmuck des p. 83, who gives this the narne of and states tlHtl it :is :made of brass

with leather {Seit?; says felt).

FIG. 12. Augu;t "~-~'"" e'""'·avin~;-aJOP<<ratus. Prob­ably Bohemian; Stockholm.

century. Stad.wnu.,eum,

.FIG. 13. Set of en!;ratnne;-wirwels the appara-tu.s shown in

FIG. 14. Engraving showing hard,)tone-engraver at work., tVith his tools, P, ]. 1\t!ariette~ TraitC des Picrres Cravees, 1750. Victoria and Albert Mu­seu-m.

95

graver fed the abrasive to his cutting-edge. He says that the emery ("Schmirgcl") is broken up in a mortar and then on a stone

with an iron balL The resultant is then in an iron without a handle" mixed

with olive oil ("Baumohl"), and on the bench. When it is put to the

which is aiiowed to take a few turns in the mixture.M This was no doubt the followed the engraver shown in Weigel's

(Fig. 6).

One further ray of light is thrown by the apparatus preserved in Stockholm. With the

engraving-machine was a set of wheels (Fig. 1.3). These arc made with a steel

shaft set in a haft which appears to be of lead or a lead-alloy,'" and which is fitted with the

lug to stop it slipping as is described by Krucnitz (soc above p. 94). The heads arc of

copper, in the two smallest where the head is turned out of the steel of the shaft

m thus again the account given by Krucnitz. ::-.b In modern the

l!:nmintc-'''h'oel is fixed in its socket tap of a hammer, and detached inserting a tool in a slot at the bottom end of the socket and it out.nn Since this slot exists in the

Libcrcc (Fig. 8), it is reasonable to surmise that the same methods were also used

as far back as the end of the 17th cm1turv. ] 4 here, from shows a French

gem-engraver of the mid-18th at together with all the tools of his craft. Figs. 2-4 on this cut show the which is

in all essentials tbe same as that described by

Kruenitz and by the ex-

amples illustrated here (Figs. 7-9, 12),

5i5. Krucnitz, op. cit., p. nJB.

.56. Seitz, op. J.9; Strehblow, op. ciL, p. 78 mentions an alloy and lead.

.57. Seitz, op. cit., pp. l9-20. 58. Op. cit., p. 752, 994, C.

.?ll Strehhlow, op. ci-t., p. 78. 60. P. Ma1·iette, Twite des Pierres Gravee,~, Paris,

1750, Pl. facing p. 208.

96

except that the head itself is enclosed, presum­ably to obviate unnecessary wear of the

through dust and abrasive on them. One further difference in this apparal'us is that the into which the

wheels slol is square in the wheel being held firm means of two screws (Fig. ,!)1

The remainder of this most instructive Plate shows the tools in detail. 9

and 10 show the engraving-wheels for use, either in a circular or held verti­cal in a box with a cover. 12 is the

bottle to hold the olive-oil, 14 a container

for the and Fig. 15 a little bowl the mixture of the two, to-gether with a (also for its ap-plication (to the stone in this rather than to the wheel). 24-30 show the dif­

ferent engraving-wheels. This is closely

echoed in that illustrated in the great French Er,;r:!Jd<rpriclie, in which the Plate volume de­voted to '"Gravure en Picrres fines" is dated

1767.'l1 the very follows that of .:vfarictte in a way to that the article

was I:uge1y derived from that source.

The thus equipped, leans his bows on the bench (on little cushions if w1mcs, as we sec Dominik Bimann doing in a

of 1833)62 and presses his glass on the 1mderside of the wheel, having the

wheel between himself and it. According to Kr·mmitz, his first task is to work over with a wheel of the outline of his sul)je•ct which he has previously dnnvn on the surface of the with a mixture of white lead and gum water.6;1 He then pr•oe<ec<Js to cut the rnain

OL Didcrot et D' Alemhert, Encyclopedie ou TJir:-tionnaire Rai.sonne, de:~· Sdences, des r-;t des Wfetiers .. , Paris, Recueil de Planches, V,

tl2. C. E. l'azaurck, Glaser der urul Bieder-meierzeit, 192!3, 100. See also Strehblow, op. cit., p. 77.

63. p. 1.56. Strehblow :recommends a good white mixed with (op. c'if., p. 8;3), a instance of lhe life of these tradi-tional tcdmiques.

forms of his as nitz docs not go of technique, that there is no rule as to how the wheels shall be selected. A mid­century has left us an account of how to engrave a gem., his obscTvations with a (Fig. The account runs as follows:

.. One by out with a half-round tool an oval of the size of the head in

To obtain one must move the stone for otherwise the

tool will make no more than a circular away little by little to the depth re­

f or the eyes. Sec letter "a' on the section 3JL

65. Laurent de Graver en Pierres moderne

•. •• .,.r;; -~- . ·. \· ..

Knc>modooc ii'lustra;ring the of a gem, T rait€ de la methode de

en Pierres fines ... , J754. Victoria and Al­:Museum.

"One can in the axis as far as

up the 'modium on the letter ' and below as far as up the neck

below the letter 'a.' One in the same way the short axis to an oval suitable for the head.

"This one may the space

for the and cnlar1;e side than on the in imitation of the

nal. VVith tbe same tool one may mark out the space for the to about the shown

letter 'b' in 3, and with about the width shown at letter 'b' of 2. After this one and takes a smaller one for the forehead, letter 'e' of 2 and 3, and

the same for the rnodium and stotrting the so as to avoid tools

"The foundations thus one takes a nar-rower slightly mcmded, and as as is called for the of the nose, and one en­

of the nose in a graves the

the """"''~ and the neck Sec letter 'd' in ures 2 and 3.

''After this a smaller tool is necessary for in~ and across the end of the

nose, to form the one sketches ln. the eyes, and the locks of letter 'f in 2 and .3. one takes the boute-rollc (this is the instrument with the head made

splrwr·ic,d) to the on the end of the nose) which has to be o:n to what has ahceadv been Letter 'g' in 2

ent·irelv at

after which one errml<w< tools which are smaller and cut to finish the in accordance with the capa<oity of the artist."

He concludes: "That is all that can he en­the enurn,vir O"-,;en"1

97

FIG. 16. Unfinished panel of engraved glass. early 19th century. Victoria and Albert M,use-um. Crown Copyright.

tially finished has survived in !he collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum (Fig. 16). It is Swiss wm·k dating from the early years of the 19th century, but it clearly shows preliminary cuts of the kind described by Kruenitz and

'\latter. After the engraving was finished, it was pol­

ished as required with wheels of the same di­mensions and shapes as those used for the en­graving itseH, but made of lead for the larger, and pewter for !he smaller ones.66 The abra­sives used were or oxide of tin 1nixed with water, or powdered pumice and water, 67

66. Kruenitz, op. cit., p. 758. Cf. Strehblow, op. cit., pp. 80-81, who also mentions poplar-wood, spindle­wood, and a bristle-edged wheel (cf. Fig. 14, No. 19, here).

67. Krucnitz, op. cit., p. 757. Cf. Strehblow, op. cit., p. 80, who names "Kuglerschlamm" as abrasive-that

98

It is clear that even before the end of the 17th century the glass-engraver's equipment had been rendered sufficiently light and portable to enable it to be taken from place to place by vagrant glass-hawkers, who could then engrave on the the initials, coats-of-an:ns, etc. de­sired by their customers. The outstanding ex­ample of this phenomenon was the Bohemian Georg Franz Kreybich, who covered Europe from end to end with his barrow in the last years of the 17th century and the early of the 18th century. 68 Later evidence from Den­mark has shown that the practice continued there until well into the 18th ccntury.69

It had been argued here that the sm·vi•cinP" engraving equipment and the written sources

authorize the assumption that the apparatus of the glass-engraver developed directly ou! of that of the hardstone-engraver. A difficulty arises, however, at this point. Joachim von Sandrart, writing in 1675 apropos Georg Schwanhardt, the pupil of Lehmann and the founder of the Nuremberg school of engravers, says: 70 ''Now although the previously mentioned artists brought glass-engraving to perfection, in so far as judgment and drawing were it was nevertheless impossib]e for them~ because of the all-too-powerful and clumsy tools which they used, to give delicacy or charm to their work; considering the still existing heavy appa­ratus and wheels (for which they had to employ assistants and wheel-turners, from whose midst thereafter sprang those still-flourishing weeds the 'Stimpler'") it is to be marvelled at that

is, a mixture of water with fine sand obtained hy sus~ pension in water and elimination of the grosser cle~'i.

68. See "From Kamcnicky Scuov over the whole of Europe with a \Vheelbarrow," Czechoslovak Glass Reviet.v, TX, 5/6, ID54; J. R V~lvra, Vas Glas, Prague, 19.54, p. !.'i6.

69. Gudmund Boesen, "Glaskraemmere og gla:ssni­dare: noget om glas og glashandell Danmark for 1760," Kulturminder, J.9tH, pp. !30 ff.

70. Op. cit., p. 346. 71 . I .it. "'bunglers." On the connotation. of this word,

sec von Czihak, op. cit., pp . .129-130.

achieved as much as Since then more convenient and suitable cqui1nncnt has

been

,_,asp!lr Lehmann already the use of the wheel for his work on

this reference to and clumsy tools in the context of the Schwanhardt family's activi­ty at a later date? Nfodern commentators have been to brush Sandrart aside as an un­reliable source, but he personally lived in X<uc,mlbcJ,·g at a time when the elder Schwan-hardt's sons were still and he had been for a while in when Schwanhardt the Elder himself was workin<': he was therefore

to a position to know. It is such without

reason) and on this there seems to be some evidence which has not hitherto been to bear. Dr. Ut,isi!'72 has out that in the <..'Onhact

for dravvn up in 1573 be-tween. the Duke of Bavaria and the Saracchi

it that one brother another co1m~•lelte

shilping, and a third do the decorative en-The is that the first two

would usc the hand-turned while the third would usc the gem-cngr:lV<Jr s

Ntlvertli:el<JSs, when we look at Karel ~lcrl'lo', ni<rh11re of the interior of the \1iseroni

workshop in we see in the only with hand-

turned wlle<lls, and two cutters or by the windows so that the

their work. A closer look at the nearer of these shows him to be which nnJie·cts towards him. Of a wheel or a object in the workman's hands there seems to be no trace, and he assumes the

72. Ni.iml;errer Glasschnitt . ., p. 19.

exact postcuc of an engraver en12:a1ied on some dose of work The is dated

and its """ """"""Y observed detail for its accuracy. That the hand-turned wheel con-tinued in usc is demonstrated two of evidence. The German Paul Schind-ler, for Duke Frederick III of Holstein­

in 1651 and 1652 ob­paymccnts of money to meet the wages of

assistants who turned the wheel for him as he worked: in there were 3 Reichs­taler "to Andreas ·wahl, a soldier, who for a time turned the wheel at the glass-engraver's. "73

When Schindler his widow sold tools" ("I )nehinstmcm,en-te")," and if Schindler did not change from one type of to another in the course of his life~ this won1d have meant that the hand-turned was in use until towards the end of the 17th ecu,tm-v (~iartdrart says that such cquifHWcnt was "still existing,

and this at least must have been a matter of ne1rsona1 obser·vation). Secondly, on the trade­

glass-Jsclller, from the third we sec such a

here it is clearly rather than enJ~rn.vil1g;

worth in mind that although cngntvcd ha vc been with of

ascribed to Paul of the only two works which are known to be one is a bot-tlc76 and the other is a decorated

with facets (Fig. 19). It may well he that of this sort was at first used for finer work but was to the field of covered in German pan"cJKc

the work of the or as

73. und

"Der Glasschneider Pa-ol Schindler nm·dis,che Glaser des 17. Jal~rhimdlerts,'

Erich 74. Ihid., p. 203. 75. Ibid., p. 204. 76. Ibid., 2.

99

the engraving-wheel was for the more delicate tasks. It is worth bearing in mind that when he died in 1689, the Frankfurt glass­engraver Johann Hess left behind him in one room of his house a and i.n another "77 The two types of equipment may have been com­plementary, and it is possible that glass-en­gravers who came to the art way of rock­<:ri/Sttzt C1.1tting may have heen more familiar with the hand-turned wheel than those who came to it by way of seal-cutting on hard­stones.78

77. "Gross Schlcif.rad" and "Glasschneiderwerk-· zeug" -see G. E. Pazaurek, "Her Frankfurter Glas­schnitt und die Familic Hess," Der Kmostwanderer, 8, 1926, p. 96, n. 12.

78, Part H of this study will appear in a future volume of the ]ottrnal.

FIG. 17. Karel Skreta, The Family of D. Miseroni. Oil-painting, dated .1658. Narodni Galerie V Praze.

FIG. 18. Detail from trade-card of Maydwell and VVindle, showing hand~turned cutting-machine. London; third quarter of 18th century. Collection of the writer.

FIG. 19. Door from a clock by Claus Radeloff, the glass panel executed by l'aul Schincller for Freder­ick lii of Holstein-Cottorp io 1654. National Mu­seurn, Copenhagen.