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A Brief History of Lampworking
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A Brief History of Lampworking
by Robert A. Mickelsen
Although there is no real way to accurately determine the age of lampworking because many of the techniques associated with working glass at a flame were established long before the first lamp, or burner, was developed; lampworking as we know it today was born with the Italian Renaissance. Angelo Barovier, working on Murano, created, "cristallo" -- a clear soda glass -- in 1450. As chemical science developed through the inquiries of alchemists, there arose a concurrent need for clear, durable vessels to contain, mix, and measure components. No material was better suited for the task than this new clear glass. The first apparati were primitive and not really precise. Off-hand, pipe, glass blowing was poorly suited for making the necessary objects: Off-hand techniques simply could not provide the precision demanded and the energy demands for full scale furnace work seemed wasteful of a tremendous amount of energy and natural resources (glass furnaces were fueled by cutting down the forests of Europe) to produce such small things.
The search for precision led (al)chemists to technical advancements: by forcing a narrow stream of air into the flame of an oil lamp, sufficient heat could be generated to soften and work small pieces of glass. However, this stream of air had to be continuous to yield the desired results. At first the fledgling lampworkers actually blew through a tube directed at the flame, but dizziness brought on by hyperventilation made this solution good only for very short periods. The next step was a hand bellows, but this did not produce a constant stream of air as the bellows had to be released in order to refill with air for the next pump, and it made modeling difficult as the craftsman had to hold it in one of his hands. These drawbacks were overcome by adding an expandable bladder to the bellows and developing a foot bellows which allowed the worker to use both hands at all times.
The versatility of this new technology was quickly apparent and gave the lampworker several important advantages over the glassblower. Because the lampworker was able to selectively heat the object by directing the flame at a specific area, he could realize exacting procedures which were extremely difficult for the off-hand glassblower, who could only reheat the entire piece all at once. Additionally, as the energy demands of lampworking were just a tiny fraction of those of glassblowing, it was much more economical and lampworked creations could be afforded by common people.
By the beginning of the 18th century localized industries devoted to making small items for public consumption had sprung up all over Europe. The town of Nevers, France, was noted for tiny figurines of people and farm animals which were so popular that their production continued until the beginning of this century. The village of Lauscha, Germany, was entirely employed in the making of Christmas ornaments at the lamp. Venice itself employed lampworking techniques in making beads and millefiori, tiny murrines that looked like flowers.
At the turn of the 20th century the Polish father and son team, Rudolph and Leopold Blaschka, combined to create what is arguably the most stunning example of lampwork the world has ever seen. They were already well known for their glass models of marine life when Virginia Ware of the Harvard Botanical Museum commissioned them to undertake a mammoth project, the creation of detailed botanical models of every known variety of common plant in Europe. Using only a simple bellows-driven lamp and a variety of home-made tools, the Blaschkas produced the models with wire frameworks to give them structure and enamels and paints to duplicate the coloration and texture of the plants. For the next thirty years they created some 800 models. The results were stunning! The models are so lifelike that even close scrutiny cannot distinguish between the glass and the "real thing". Most are still on display at Harvard's Peabody Museum. To this day, no one has ever succeded in reproducing the Blaschkas's techniques or in duplicating the quality of their work.
The demand for refined scientific instruments continued unabated through the 19th century. Although equipment and tools became more sophisticated, the basic material -- the glass formulas -- were the same as when invented more than 200 years before. Therefore, the apparati were prone to leaching when exposed to caustic chemicals and had a tendency to shatter when repeatedly heated and cooled. In 1924 scientists working at the glass factories in Corning, New York, invented a new, more resilient glass which was composed of a large percentage of uncombined silica, used boron instead of soda or lead, and contained a small percentage of aluminum for clarity. This new borosilicate glass, named Pyrex, has a very low coefficient of expansion and is very resistant to thermal and physical shock. As it is about 15% lighter by volume than traditional glass, but much stronger, Pyrex was ideal for apparati. However there was one problem: the melting temperature was so high that the forced-air lamps could not melt the glass and the material could not be worked. Borrowing from the welding trade and combining oxygen and natural gas, new burners were designed that produced a flame of sufficient heat to melt Pyrex; and torches clamped to the lampworker's bench top replaced traditional oil lamps. These too were eventually replaced by the modem surface-mix bench burners in use today.
The advent of Pyrex revolutionized lampworking in north America. Although developed for scientific instruments, Pyrex soon found its way into the hands of artists and artisans who adapted the glass for "artistic" and novelty pieces. "Glassblowers" began popping up at county fairs and tourists traps across the United States making and selling their items in front of appreciative crowds. No one called it art, but everyone enjoyed it just the same, and all across America the public came to associate "glassblowing" with the lampworkers they encountered at carnivals, theme parks and, later shopping malls --blown swans filled with colored water, little spun glass ships, animals that could be made cheaply and sold quickly. Quality and creativity were not relevant issues and lampworkers copied each other mercilessly until all novelty lampwork started to look alike.
In Europe, however, the introduction of borosilicate glass did not denote the death toll for old traditions. In Lauscha, local craftsmen continued working strictly with German soda-lime glass, busily perfecting centuries-old techniques and, at times, unconsciously crossing the line from novelty to art. In particular, Albin Schaedel, developed and perfected a technique -- montage -- that came to characterize East German lampwork from the l960's on. Montage is simply the assembly of many pieces of tubing into one large bubble which is then shaped into a final vessel form. This technique is incredibly difficult and time consuming, and Schaedel and a few other Lauschans are the only ones in the world who have mastered it. The resulting vessels are impossibly intricate and very, very beautiful. Perhaps the greatest master craftsman from Lauscha is Kurt Wallstab, whose work is internationally acclaimed for its beauty and perfection.
Venetian lampworkers also clung tenaciously to their traditional soda glass formulas, primarily for color compatibility, especially as the Moretti factory there continued to produce a broad spectrum of brilliantly colored cane, which local lamp workers were busily mastering to create brightly colored pieces of a quality unequaled anywhere in the world. Modern masters like Lucio Bubacco, Vittorio Costantini, and Gianni Toso carry on the Venetian traditions and techniques.
However, in Czechoslovakia one remarkable woman, Vera Liskova, elevated borosilicate lampworking into a fine art. Her large, str
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