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Who invented introducing controlled bubbles in glass and when ? Please !

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Baked_Beans:
I'm really interested to know the history of  the contolled bubble technique in glass and when did it first start to appear ?  Any info. would be great...thanks very much.

langhaugh:
I know of three main means of deliberately creating bubbles in glass. First, physically creating the bubbles with either a spike mould (also called a pineapple or nail mould), or rolling the parison on a flat bed of spikes. Another layer of glass is added and bubbles remain where the the glass was penetrated. In Murano, the technique is called bullicante, but the technique is also used elsewhere. The second way is to create the bubbles by adding asomething to the glass and the reaction creates bubbles. In Murano, they usually use petrol/gasoline and call it puelgosa. But again, the same technique is used in many areas. The third is reticello, a Murano technique where the bubbles are created by adding two layers of crossing canes that trap a bubble of air in each intersection. 

It's hard to say who 'invented' the techniques. It's kind of like who invented bread or the bagpipes. Reticello is probably the easiest to say, as it was used in Murano in the 16th Century and elsewhere after that. Maurice Marinot used chemically created bubbles in his work in France in the 20's and 30's, it was used a lot in Murano in the 20's and 30's onwards, in Czecholslovakia in the 1940's, and in Scandinavia more from the 50's on. The physical creation of bubbles is harder to pin down. Murano a long time, Holland (Leerdam), Germany(WMF), Britain (Whitefriars) and Scandinavia in the 30's onwards.

This is probably much more than you wanted. Sorry if it is. As you might be able to tell, it's a topic that interests me. I may be wrong or incomplete in some of the details, but I think the general gist of what I wrote is OK.

Good luck.

David

Baked_Beans:
Thanks David so much for your info., that's just so superb. The reason I asked the question was that I bought a Whitefriars inkwell (green, controlled bubble) with a silver top and I think the date letter is a 1 (a number) and I think it dates from 1906. Which if I'm right would suggest Whitefriars was producing controlled bubbles in 1906. One (the number) could have been used in other years with a different shield shape so it could be later. I might be wrong with the date. Anyway you can see it by typing in the item number 230403792960 in the search field on ebay.co.uk. The last photo clearly shows the silver marks. Anyway it looks very 'Arts and Crafts'.
Thanks again for your help as it is usefull for putting a date limit on a piece of glass in some cases.

Ohio:
Carl Erickson in the US used two different methods, first was the pea (early) (think of a tiny golf ball) that melted at a low temp & the air that was trapped in the pattern of the pea released after being inserted in the base of the piece & second was a pine tree shaped metal shaft inserted in the base & withdrawn quickly releasing air trapped in the pattern of the tree. Ken

langhaugh:
Some fascinating info here. Does anybody know the date of the Whitefriars inkwell?

Ken: I knew Erickson used bubbles but I didn't know about the peas. Do you mean actual peas, or small pieces of something that wouldn't leave a residue in the glass. If I remember, Erickson came from Scandinavia. Did he work in a glass factory there?

David

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