I'm very sorry if my writing again offends anyone but I am genuinely confused by the suggestion that gold-ruby glass production stopped c.1740 and didn't restart again until Pohl in c.1830s.
I am also confused about the comments that the Hermitage might have dates incorrect on all those pieces of glass. Yes it might be that they have other information wrong re the gorge de pigeon glass (I was circumspect about one of those pieces on a thread a long time ago) but I don’t see how that brings into question their production of gold ruby glass as being outside the dates above.
I have done some searching to demonstrate why and provided the links to the information I have read as to why I am questioning it.
Please do not batter me and suggest I am adding links for the sake of it.
I would prefer that someone explained why these links are incorrect or why my understanding is incorrect.
1) In 2011 there was a call for papers and an announcement of a conference to be held:
http://www.aihv.org/fr/SecondAnnouncement.pdf'International Conference on the Chemistry of Glasses and Glass-Forming Melts'
Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford
in celebration of the 300th anniversary of the birth of Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov
As part of the commentry on that link it says:
‘ … Lomonosov was particularly interested in glass colour. He understood the importance of quantitative measurement and of the necessity to perform systematic investigations under similar conditions (temperature, atmosphere, melting time, etc.), and was the first to use a microscope in glass studies. He worked on glass for 17 years and in one period of 3½ years melted 2184 glass batches (~2 per day!). His main goal was to investigate the influence of glass composition on properties and to prepare glasses with specific properties.
He produced more shades of colour (including gold ruby glass) than were then known in Europe, and introduced zinc, mercury and bismuth into glasses 130 years before Otto Schott.
Lomonosov may thus be considered the father of glass chemistry, and scientific glassmaking, and was also the founder of physical chemistry and scientific geology. Using his knowledge of coloured glasses, he personally created mosaic pictures that can still be seen in St. Petersburg.’
There is a list on that link, of the organising committee members for that conference.
As far as I have read elsewhere (iirc in the book Russian Glass of the 17th-20th Centuries), Lomonosov turned his recipes over to the Imperial glass manufactory.
2) Also in 2011, a book was produced called Glasses and the Glass Transition
By Ivan S. Gutzow, Oleg V. Mazurin, Jürn W. P. Schmelzer, Snejana V. Todorova, Boris B. Petroff, Alexander I. Priven
It says under chapter 10.4 after discussing Kunckel
‘…
Then followed the second re-invention of gold ruby glass by Lomonosov [659] in the eighteenth century in St Petersburg’https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=B8JBgLcqeXUC&pg=PT538&dq=lomonosov+gold+ruby+glass&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiRi4DelsnMAhWpAsAKHRqGB-gQ6AEINTAD#v=onepage&q=lomonosov%20gold%20ruby%20glass&f=falseThe authors of that book are described here on Wiley
http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-3527409688.htmlas:
'
Description
Written by renowned researchers in the field, this up-to-date treatise fills the gap for a high-level work discussing current materials and processes. It covers all the steps involved, from vitrification, relaxation and viscosity, right up to the prediction of glass properties, paving the way for improved methods and applications.
For solid state physicists and chemists, materials scientists, and those working in the ceramics industry.'
The author is described thus:
'
Author Information
Prof. Ivan S. Gutzow, scientist with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, has served at research positions at various institutions, including the Universities of Jena and Rostock, Germany, and MIT and Case Western University, USA. His work, published in more than 240 papers, has earned him various awards, e.g. the 2002 International Alexander von Humboldt Research Price.
His society affiliations include the German Union of Glass Technology (DGG), and the International Commission of Glass.'
3) Then in 2012:
This paper dated 2012, was a translation of the paper
‘On the Strata of the Earth’ by Mikhail Lomonosov
there is an foreword by Irene G. Malakhova
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=FRXlvOxeXMYC&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq=lomonosov+gold+ruby+glass&source=bl&ots=Jyjr2wH9Be&sig=mcAUFiSewnS4lYj1nPi1E-JowV0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiVm9nslMnMAhWpIsAKHeUAAzYQ6AEIJDAA#v=onepage&q=gold%20ruby%20glass&f=falseWhilst there is only part paper available to view there is again a small mention in there of gold ruby glass. (no 77 under translation)
4)
From Sotheby's there is a very long description of Lomonosov's experiments in the link below. The description starts by saying:
'
The art of coloured glass in Russia and Mikhail Lomonosov’s workshops in Ust-Ruditsa
Text by Emmanuel Ducamp
The activity of the Russian polymath Mikhail Lomonosov, his research on coloured glass and the creations by his workshops in Ust-Ruditsa are now better known thanks to the research done by Russian specialists, especially the synthesis made by L. Tarasova in the catalogue of the exhibition “Mikhail Lomonosov and the time of Elisabeth I” which took place in the Hermitage Museum in 2011.'It also makes mention of the ruby glass coloured by gold.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=FRXlvOxeXMYC&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq=lomonosov+gold+ruby+glass&source=bl&ots=Jyjr2wH9Be&sig=mcAUFiSewnS4lYj1nPi1E-JowV0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiVm9nslMnMAhWpIsAKHeUAAzYQ6AEIJDAA#v=onepage&q=gold%20ruby%20glass&f=false5) And then in 2014
there was an exhibition at the State Historical Museum
There are two reference links I could find to this exhibition.
This link writes about the exhibition and specifically about a gold-ruby cup that was gilded ‘at the turn of the 19th century.’ (i.e. c.1800 -my words) It shows a photograph of the item. That date does not fall within the dates stated of production of ruby-glass finishing c.1740s and not restarting until c.1830s:
http://russia-insider.com/en/russian-glass-xviii-twentieth-centuries-state-historical-museum/5552In the next link describing the exhibition the wording is for date on that piece is the same:
'For those unfamiliar with the Imperial Glass Factory, this was in operation between 1777 and 1917. The factory remained an authoritative trend setter for the art of the glass makers' craft. Among the works on exhibition, there is a rare cup of glass “gold ruby” painted at the turn of XIX century, ...'
http://our-russia.com/1991491320/russian-glass-state-historical-museumGiven all these pieces of information, and the authority of the various contributors involved, I am confused as to how it can be assumed the Hermitage has the dates completely wrong about the Imperial Glass production of gold ruby glass.
Especially since the cup shown was in an exhibition two years ago and was dated then as c.1800 - surely after all this activity on Lomonsov's work they would not get that date wrong?
I am asking therefore, is it possible that the gold-ruby cup in the exhibition of 2014 at the State Historical museum, is correctly dated as c.1800 (i.e. the turn of the 19th century) and this therefore falls before the suggested c.1835 date for Pohl reinventing gold-ruby glass and perhaps comes under the banner of the comment in the book above of
‘…Then followed the second re-invention of gold ruby glass by Lomonosov [659] in the eighteenth century in St Petersburg’
and likewise that it is possible there may be other gold-ruby glass items from the Imperial Glass factory in the Hermitage collection that also have the correct production dates and that fall before c1835?
Might this information also give credence to the information I quoted earlier from the book
'The Russian book says on page 46
''Gold had been used to produce ruby glass at the Imperial Glassworks since Lomonosov's time, and this type of glass was called "gold-ruby". 'I do understand how producing the recipe for, and producing mosaic glass pieces of, gold-ruby glass in the mid 1700s could be different perhaps to producing blown glass large items, but I don't understand how they could be so completely wrong in their dating given the information they have at hand and that the recipes and information was handed over to the factory by Lomonosov.
I appreciate any comments as to why these linked information sources might be incorrect or might have been incorrectly interpreted by me as support that gold-ruby glass might have been produced by Russia before c.1835.
m
Topic: Small facet cut stem ruby glass - Gorge de pigeon / Gold-ruby instead (Read 11567 times)
