Albarello | Techniques of Renaissance Venetian-Style Glassworking

This video shows thin, white canes being made and cut to their required length. They are pre-heated on a ceramic place-holding plate and attached to the exterior of a solid, cylindrical mass of glass that is gradually inflated. Glassblowing is then used to make the vessel. Learn more about this object in The Techniques of Renaissance Venetian-Style Glassworking by William Gudenrath renvenetianstyle.cmog.org/node/3 🛡
Between about 1500 and 1725, Venice was nearly the sole supplier of fine luxury glass to the royal and aristocratic, the wealthy and powerful, throughout Europe. The Venetian government went to extreme measures to protect its lucrative and prestigious monopoly by isolating the highly skilled workers on the nearby island of Murano and severely restricting their movements. However, with the promise of personal freedom and the hope of fortune, they gradually fled the lagoon to set up workshops in a variety of locations on the Continent and in England.
The Techniques of Renaissance Venetian-Style Glassworking - renvenetianstyle.cmog.org - presents detailed 360° photography and high-definition video related to objects from nine glassworking centers influenced by Venetian style as researched by master glassmaker and scholar William Gudenrath.
The resource is a follow-up to Gudenrath's popular Techniques of Renaissance Venetian Glassworking (2016) also available free online at renvenetian.cmog.org.

[@ATMAtim]

Bill, you never cease to amaze me with your solo techniques. Pure professionalism on video!

[@corningmuseumofglass]

Thanks for watching!

[@Tom_Err]

Always a pleasure to watch a master at work!

[@corningmuseumofglass]

Thanks for watching!

[@bookbook9495]

This was really neat! Glassblowing has always been really hard for me, so it’s great to see a master at work

[@CrowSkeleton]

Thank you for showing the final product! Incredible skill on display here. I hope the narrator guy got to go home and sleep after this, he sounds so tired.

[@corningmuseumofglass]

Thanks for watching!

[@eGEIGS]

I believe the "narrator guy" is the same person who is blowing the glass.

[@corningmuseumofglass]

@@eGEIGS That's correct! Bill Gudenrath both makes the glass and narrates in these videos. Thanks for watching!

[@NoeDactyl]

Thank you for sharing!

[@corningmuseumofglass]

Thanks for watching!

[@cuttygrass]

In some of these fabulous videos involving vessels with canes in a configuration such as this, twisting of those canes seems to occur naturally as a result of tooling, and sometimes indeed seems the point! In this case, the canes do a good job of staying straight (or should I say Bill does a good job at keeping them so!). How does this work?

[@corningmuseumofglass]

Hi, Bill says, "Twisted…straight-there is indeed a huge variety of both cane types and the ways in which they were used in Venetian and Venetian style glassblowing processes. In practice, it’s easier keeping twisted patterns looking good than non-twisted ones. This is because the eyes accept variations in the tightness of twisting patterns. By contrast, canes positioned straight up and down that are inadvertently subjected to torque (twist) become distorted and stand out as errors. The challenge for the glassblower is-especially when the glass is at its softest-to distribute the unavoidable torque (the blowpipe or punty must be turned to keep the object on center) equally in both directions. To see how much better the Renaissance-period workers were at managing this challenge than I am, see the Turquoise Pot video and compare my finished piece with the opening photograph of theirs!" Thanks for watching!

[@cuttygrass]

@@corningmuseumofglass Thank you and Bill so much for this answer! The even distribution of torque is the heart of the answer to my question, I think. Once again, thank you for these amazing videos - they have inspired me to start working with glass myself. Greetings and felicitations from New Zealand.

[@mnemotronic]

Why is the rollup done on a gather without an initial bubble? I.e. what advantages does that offer vs rollup on a bubble or collar? Something about torgue like in your response to @bhmainz? Were you able to determine that was the technique used from someone's notes or by studying a finished piece? p.s. Bill: Thx for these demos!

[@corningmuseumofglass]

Hi, here's the answer from Bill: "If I’ve learned one thing over the last few years, it’s that, in past centuries, there were many different techniques used to ‘pick-up’ canes. Within my two e-books-this one and renvenetian.cmog.org-there are a bunch! As always, the technique I show in a video is the one that, through trial and error, has shown itself to mimic more closely than any other the visual and tactile characteristics that we see and feel in the original object. In this case, to have the canes stand slightly ‘proud’ (as the English say) above the surface, and have the correct wall-thickness, and to have the replica ‘feel’ so correct, I wound up settling on this process of picking up canes before the glass was inflated. The business of firm marvering as the glass is inflated is integral to achieving these characteristics. This is a technique that I’ve never seen or heard of a living Venetian glassblower using, and I suspect that it wasn’t done in Murano in the past. As many of the odd techniques I show in renvenetianstyle.cmog.org, I suspect that this was some clever, inventive, and creative ‘foreign’ glassworker’s invention. I suspect that many of these came and went within one career, carefully kept secret within the walls of the workshop. Fascinating stuff, no? Thanks so much for your interest and curiosity. " Thanks for watching!

[@gabriellearterburn4428]

POV: Imma just bend this molten sand to my will. K thx bye!