Types of Canes
There are several different types of canes used in paperweight design. Understanding how these canes are made can help in identifying a particular weight and evaluating its quality.
Canes made by pressing molten glass into molds and stretching them once are called simple canes. They often feature specific shapes such as circles,
2.37 Display of canes
2.38 Three stages of a complex cane
stars, cogwheels, arrows, and honeycombs. Silhouettes are also a type of simple cane [2.37].
Frequently, a number of simple canes are bundled together, heated, and stretched again to form a complex cane [2.38]. This process may be repeated a number of times. Each time the design, which remains intact, is perfectly miniaturized [2.39). Portrait canes and some date and signature canes are also made in this manner.
Silhouette Canes. A silhouette cane is one which in cross section reveals an outline of an emblem or figure. During the classic period of paperweight
2.40 Baccarat muslin weight with Gridel canes
2.41 Silhoti ette mold, simple cane, and weight
making, glass factories developed their own designs for silhouette canes. For example, Cristaller- ies de Baccarat is well known for its Gridel silhouette canes, a series of eighteen animal silhouettes inspired by the paper cut-outs of a nine-year-old child [2.40].
Silhouette canes are created by pressing the central gather of the cane into a mold of a particular shape [2.41]. It is common practice for the second gather, which makes up the contrasting layer around the figure, to be pressed into a cogwheel-shaped mold [2.42]. It is important that the central figure be graphically strong and simple so that when miniaturized, it will have the desired effect.
2.43 AtTanging rods to form portrait cave
2.44 Portrait cams before being stretched
2.45 Finished portrait canes
Portrait Canes. Although portrait canes also contain a tiny image or figure, they are made by a different process. Portrait canes are composed of thin unmolded rods of various colors that are arranged while cold, much like pieces of a mosaic, to portray minutely detailed pictures [2.43]. ‘This arrangement of canes is heated to fuse the rods together and then stretched to reduce the image [2.44, 2.45]. Although French makers did not use portrait canes during the classic period, Baccarat utilized flower canes that were made up of unmolded rods in much the same manner.
Typical portrait canes were often utilized by early Italian glassmakers. In his book Nineteenth Century Glass, Albert Christian Revi describes the technique used by Pietro Bigaglia and other Venetian makers to produce portrait canes [2.46, 2.47]:
In producing portrait “murrini” the various features of the physiognomy and costume were made up
separately, the separate parts being composed of tiny glass rods of various shades and colors, no thicker than the lead from an ordinary pencil. These tiny colored rods of glass were arranged and bound together before being subjected to heat which fused the rods into a single unit. These separate units were drawn out while still in a plastic state, diminishing in size hut retaining their original design.
The facial features, eyes, nose, mouth, beard or mustache, were placed in position in a mold and the rest of the countenance filled in with tiny flesh- colored rods of glass. As many as four different skin tones were used, giving the finished portrait a realism never attained before or since in a glass rod. The costumes were also previously made up in parts and arranged and added in the same way.
Today, Perthshire Paperweights in Scotland produces portrait and picture canes in the traditional Italian manner.
2.48 Baccarat date canes
separately, the separate parts being composed of tiny glass rods of various shades and colors, no thicker than the lead from an ordinary pencil. These tiny colored rods of glass were arranged and bound together before being subjected to heat which fused the rods into a single unit. These separate units were drawn out while still in a plastic state, diminishing in size hut retaining their original design.The facial features, eyes, nose, mouth, beard or mustache, were placed in position in a mold and the rest of the countenance filled in with tiny flesh-colored rods of glass. As many as four different skin tones were used, giving the finished portrait a realism never attained before or since in a glass rod. The costumes were also previously made up in parts and arranged and added in the same way.