Enfilade

From the V&A:

Celebrating the Birth of English and Irish Crystal Drinking Glass, 1640–1702
In-person and online, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 6 October 2022

Organised by Colin Brain, Reino Liefkes, and Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth, with assistance from Simon Spier

2022 has been designated the International Year of Glass by the United Nations. This year also marks 125 years since the publication of Albert Harshorne’s Old English Glasses, the first serious study of the history of English and Irish glass. To celebrate, the V&A is presenting a conference Celebrating the Birth of English and Irish Crystal Drinking Glass, 1640–1702, in partnership with the Association for the History of Glass. This study day aims to explore the evolving story of the birth of these sophisticated products, a century before the ‘industrial revolution’ began.

The conference has been organised by Colin Brain (Association for the History of Glass), Reino Liefkes (V&A) and Dr Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth (University of Edinburgh), with assistance from Dr Simon Spier (V&A).

In-person tickets, through Eventbrite

Online tickets, through Eventbrite

Roemer drinking glass, attributed to George Ravenscroft, probably at the Savoy Glasshouse, London, ca. 1677 (London: V&A, C.530-1936).

P R O G R A M M E

10.00  Registration with Tea and Coffee

10.25  Welcome — Justine Bayley and Reino Liefke

10.30  Morning Session
• Colin Brain — ‘And of noe other sorts or fashions’: Fashionable Design in the Birth of English and Irish Crystal Drinking Glass
• Peter Francis — The Irish ‘Lead Glass Revolution’
• Jo Wheeler — Recipes for Lead-glass and Cristallo in Venetian and Florentine Sources and Their Influence on Antonio Neri
• Reino Liefkes — A New Type of Colourless Glass in Imitation of Rock Crystal: Crizzled Glass of the Late-Seventeenth Century

1.00  Lunch Break

2.15  Afternoon Session
• Oliver Gunning — New Perspectives on the Role of the Migrant in British Crystal Glass
• Antoine Giacometti — Seventeenth-Century Glass from the Dublin Castle Excavations, 1961–1987
• Inês Coutinho and Colin Brain — Science in the Service of History: Analysis of Early English and Irish Crystalline Glasses
• Iris Moon and Karen Stamm — Drinking Glass in the Met Museum’s British Galleries

5.10  Closing Remarks — Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth