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<a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/18/arts/raacorn.php">http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/18/arts/raacorn.php</a><br>
<h1 class="headline">Corning exhibition shines a light on the alchemy
of glass</h1>
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<div id="pubDate" style="float: right;">Published: April 18, 2008</div>
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<p><strong><a id="articleLocation" title="Click to view map"
href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/18/arts/raacorn.php#">CORNING,
New York</a>:</strong> to gold</p>
<p>The word alchemy evokes images of a crazed sorcerer in a laboratory
trying to turn base metals into gold and silver. Yet this ancient
science, which was based on the theory and practice of transforming
matter, had many useful applications.</p>
<p>Rooted in Hellenistic Egypt, alchemy reached a peak of popularity in
17th-century Europe, where it had a profound influence on Baroque
glassmakers. An upcoming exhibition at the Corning Museum of Glass in
Corning, New York, "Glass of the Alchemists: Lead Crystal-Gold Ruby,
1650-1750," will explore how alchemists contributed to the creation of
colorless crystal and gold ruby glass, two advances of fundamental
importance in the history of glassmaking.<br>
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<p>In the Finger Lakes wine country of northwestern New York State, the
Corning museum is home to the world's most comprehensive collection of
glass from all periods and cultures over the past 3,500 years.</p>
<p>On view from June 27 to Jan. 4, 2009, the exhibition will showcase
117 objects from eight international museums and the Corning's own
collection, ranging from Baroque lead crystal and gold ruby glass
vessels made in Europe and China to actual equipment and substances
used by the alchemists in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.</p>
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<p>"Alchemists were often dismissed as charlatans and eccentrics during
their lifetimes," said Dedo von Kerssenbrock-Krosigk, curator of
European glass at the Corning museum. "This exhibition is the first of
its kind to show that alchemy was not just about magic, deception and
fraud.</p>
<p>"As a precursor to modern chemistry, it actually laid the foundation
for the material sciences. Glass is a good medium with which to explore
the impact of alchemy, because its raw materials - sand and ash - are
transformed into something completely new when mixed together. This
phenomenon specifically relates to the alchemical notion of
transmutation, the idea that you can change any substance into
something else."</p>
<p>Through innovative experiments, alchemists tried to explain natural
phenomena, particularly the generation and growth of natural resources,
while investigating the technology of materials such as glass, metal,
ceramics and their components.</p>
<p>In the period covered by the exhibition alchemists traveled
throughout northern and central Europe - from Ireland and England to
Scandinavia, Brandenburg (modern-day Germany) and Bohemia - and as far
afield as China. Often working for royal courts, they interacted with
local glassmakers and disseminated knowledge gained from their
experiments.</p>
<p>Some alchemists became glassmakers themselves. These interactions
led to the discovery in the 1670s of crystal in England, where the
glass was combined with lead for stability, and central Europe, where
either lime or chalk was used as a stabilizing agent.</p>
<p>A decade later, gold ruby glass - a distinctive red-colored glass
made with gold chloride - was created in Potsdam by the alchemist
Johann Kunckel (1637-1703) under the patronage of Prince Frederick
William of Brandenburg. Kunckel had used formulas developed by an
earlier influential Amsterdam alchemist, Johann Rudolf Glauber
(1604-1670).</p>
<p>Highly prized during the Baroque era for its unusual, rich red
color, gold ruby glass was collected by European royalty and remains in
such princely collections as the Green Vault in Dresden.</p>
<p>By 1730, interest in gold ruby glass had waned; it was not only
difficult to produce but had been eclipsed by the vogue for European
hard porcelain, which was created in 1709 with a significant
contribution by a German alchemist, Johann Friedrich Böttger
(1682-1719).</p>
<p>Those glass innovations reflected a shift in interest from
glassblowing - a technique epitomized in the colorful, thin-walled
Venetian glass that dominated the European glass market in the 17th
century - to experiments in reformulating the glass material itself,
altering the traditional components to produce thick-walled vessels
that could be cut and engraved. Alchemists contributed to these
advances, experimenting with new materials to develop original glass
formulas, refining the treatment of the raw materials and developing
innovative furnace technologies.</p>
<p>"Innovations in Baroque glass can no longer be viewed exclusively as
the isolated achievements of individual glassmakers working in the
leading glassmaking regions of northern and central Europe, as has long
been thought," von Kerssenbrock-Krosigk said. "This exhibition
demonstrates that experiments by alchemists had an unexpected and
profound impact on the history of glassmaking. Up until now, glass
exhibitions have focused primarily on where glass was made and how it
was decorated, whereas this show focuses on how glass was made."</p>
<p>Among the highlights of the exhibition will be a diorama of an
alchemist's workshop, based on a 17th-century Dutch painting, and raw
materials and vessels used in alchemists' experiments, including a
17th-century mortar and pestle believed to have been found in a canal
in Amsterdam.<br>
</p>
<p>Also on show will be two lumps of gold and silver, supposedly
transmuted from base metal by Böttger in Dresden in 1713 in the
presence of King Augustus II of Poland.</p>
<p>A group of glass vessels, displayed by region of origin, will
demonstrate the development of colorless glass. They include a lead
crystal rummer - an English version of the German or Dutch römer, a
large wine glass used for drinking toasts - made at the Savoy
Glasshouse in London around 1676-1678. Marked with a raven's head seal
by the factory's owner, George Ravenscroft, it is one of five known
English rummers with seals. Cut and engraved English and Bohemian
goblets show the new decorating techniques applied to thick-walled
vessels.</p>
<p>The display of gold ruby objects will include an ornately cut and
engraved late-17th-century goblet - an important example of early gold
ruby glass from Potsdam, in Brandenburg, that was supposed to look as
though it had been carved directly from a ruby.</p>
<p>Of special interest among Chinese glass objects in the show will be
a Qianlong period (1736-1795) vase made of snowflake glass and
elaborately decorated with overlaid cut and engraved gold ruby glass.</p>
<p>The exhibition will be accompanied by educational programs that shed
further light on the history and artistry of glassmaking, including
daily live glassblowing demonstrations, where glassmakers will create
works using gold ruby glass and demonstrate techniques used to make
objects in the exhibition. Some activities will allow visitors to touch
and feel examples of crystal and gold ruby glass.</p>
<p>Visitors also will be able to make their own glass objects in the
museum's studio. The museum's Rakow Library, the world's foremost on
the art and history of glass and glassmaking, will showcase drawings,
manuscripts and other 17th- and 18th-century documents related to the
exhibition.</p>
<p>David Whitehouse, director of the Corning museum, said: "Glass is
everywhere in our daily lives - eyeglasses, computers, television
screens, fiber-optic communications - and artists have made the most
extraordinary objects from glass. But we often take it for granted.
With this exhibition, we want to continue to awaken people's curiosity
about glass, to show how it was made and how it can be both useful and
beautiful."</p>
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