GREEN GLASS
The color poetry of green glass is reflected in its names:
Antique green, apple green, aquamarine green, aventurine green, chromium green, chromium
aventurine, Chrysoprase, chrysoiite, Eleanor, Ivory green, duck green, golden green, green ä la
Pompadour, green florette, greenish blue, Isabell green, jade green, tile green, creta green, light
green, St. Mary’s green, mat green, sea green, moss green, new green, new green Celadon, new
green opaque, mignonette green, sap green or Anna-green, sap green or Louise-green, ocean
green, ocean green opaque, Celadon green, Celadon opaque, emerald green, rock green.
Glass batches were given such wonderfully sounding names in Contemporary writings (most of
the formulations are treated in the section, “Green Glass in Contemporary Sources” quoted from
p. 234). Despite these differentiations in terminology - or perhaps even because of them - it is
seldom possible to apply the correct name to a specific piece of glass. This makes glasses with
documented proof of the color term (in the form of labels, inventory entries, etc.) all the more im
portant.
The commonly used terms, “green transparent,” “green opaque” and “green crystal glass" refer
to the degree of transparency, whereby “crystal glass” is to be equated with transparent glass.
TRANSPARENT GREEN GLASSES OF THE BIEDERMEIER PERIOD
Green glass from the 19th Century is represented in the collection of the Technical Museum by
several unusual examples - in first place, a “flacon as spirit lighter” (ill. 138), whose elegant sil-
houetted Stopper appears to lift itself from the calyx of a blossom, carrying the metal fixture
which is visible through the bluish green of the body. The sugar bowl shaped like a melon on a
leaf stand (ills. 139, 140) is listed in the TH inventory as “chrysoiite glass.” Whereas severe lines
emphasize the shape of the fruit, the contrast of gold with the transparent green brings out the
differentiated but lively painting on the stand.
The different degrees of green in another bowl from a Moravian glass factory (TH inventory:
“Freih. v. Sina, Brumow") are solely the result of the detailed ornamental cut pattem (ill. 141). The
transparency is still retained, in contrast to a cup of thick-walled, almost black-green glass (ill.
142) where the transparency is practically lost altogether (barely visible only in strong light). Two
rummers from Meistersdorf in Bohemia which carry the tradition of a well known, old type of
glass (ill. 146) are light and dark green. Bluish green shimmers from the glass of a tall bottle,
which only reveals its true color in the appropriate light (ill. 148).
Parts of a tea Service belong to an expensively cut tray with two handles. The accents are made
by the protruding green “balls,” a green whose effect probably results from a thin layer of color:
“Tea Service of crystal glass with applied emerald green balls, on an eight-sided tray with brilliant
cut, 5 pieces altogether, namely: sugar bowl, milk jug, tea bottle, rum bottle and cup” (TH 12112—
12116, inventoried in 1837 and extant with the exception of one Stopper). The identical shapes of
the sugar bowl and the tea bottle show differing sections when taken apart: the bottle with Stop
per in one case, a bowl with tall lid in the other (ill. 150).
“CHRYSOPRASE COMPOSITION”
At the top of the list of opaque or only barely translucent green glasses Stands the glass imitation
of Chrysoprase. Lighter or darker, depending on the “composition,” reaching from yellowish to
greenish bluish, the intensity depending on the thickness of the walls or the cut, Chrysoprase
glass shows an extremely wide ränge of green hues.
Two variants are clear in jugs (ill. 154) from the Harrach glass house. At the Prague exhibition of
1831, Chrysoprase glass was presented as the “first products of this composition in vessels.”
(Prag, 1831; Record, 1833, p. 39, no. 924). At the same exhibition there were also Harrach objects
“of dark green glass” and “from bluish green composition” to be seen (Prague 1831; Protokoll
1833, p. 40). From the series of different colored beakers from Lötz and Schmidt in Goldbrunn,
the green ones are mentioned here: one “of emerald green glass” and one in “solid tile green”
(Prague, 1931; Catalogue, 1833, p. 36). Rock green and sap green glass from Buquoy was shown
(Vienna, 1835; Report, p. 246). J. Meyr, Adolfshütte showed green glasses with no detailed des-
criptions in Vienna in 1835.
The Harrach Chrysoprase glasses were also seen in Vienna in 1835, once termed as “sea green
Chrysoprase composition” (Vienna, 1835; Report, p. 242). “Chrysoprase” bracelets were exhibited
by this same Company in 1839 (Vienna, 1839; Report, 1840, p. 39). The Chrysoprase glass from the
glass house of Meyr’s Neffen at the Vienna exhibition of 1845 appeared to Peligot to be worth
mentioning, along with other color glasses (Vienna, 1845; Peligot, 1847, p. 356). At the industrial
exhibition in New York a jug called “Chrysoprase” glass was also acquired in 1857 (ill. 157).
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