2.46 Side view of l enetian portrait cane (murrini)
Date and Signature Canes. These canes offer a straightforward way for glass craftsmen and factories to sign their weights. Although weights made during the classic period (1845-1860) only occasionally include signature or date canes, such canes are common in contemporary pieces [2.48—2.50].Date and signature canes can he made by using molds or by arranging rods in the manner of portrait canes.Spiral Canes. Spiral canes are made of opaque glass threads wound around a clear rod. These canes are made by positioning thin white or colored glass rods at regular intervals around a central gather of clear glass [2.51]. Then, while the cane is being pulled, it is rotated to create the spiral effect. At Perthshire Paperweights, spiral canes are made by attaching one end of the cane to a hand-cranked device that allows the operator to twist the rod as it is being stretched [2.52-2.58].
2.SI Spiral cane being turned on hand crank
2.51 Spiral canes
2.52 Positioning rods to make a spiral cane
2.53 Placing rods in molten glass
2.54 Closeup of molten glass mounted on hand crank
2.55 Mounting molten gloss on hand mink
2.59 Modem Baccarat Gridel weight
2.60 Antique Saint Louis crown newel post
Short segments of randomly spaced spiral canes are used to create the underlying beds of lace (also called upset muslin, filigree, or muslin) on which millefiori and lampwork designs are often set. Sections of spiral canes are sometimes used with millefiori canes to create a regular pattern within a weight. In crown weights or newel posts spiral canes radiate from a central floret near the top of the weight, flow down the sides, and converge near the base [2.60].
Lampwork
Lampwork is a process of assembling and manipulating small components of colored glass into figures with the use of a hand torch or blowtorch [2.61]. Weights that include stylized representations of flowers, fruit, animals, reptiles, or similar subjects are often referred to as representational paperweights.
2.61 Basic equipment used for lampwork
2.62 Heating and shaping glass rod
2.64 Assembling lampwork flower
2.65 Heating crystal sing for encasement
2.66 Encasing lampwork setup
2.67 Adding cobalt ground
Thin glass rods of various colors are heated with the hand torch and then sculpted into shape with small pliers, shears, and other lampworking tools. Individual leaves, flower petals, and stems are made in this way and then carefully assembled into a complete flower by reheating with the torch. These lampwork setups are arranged on a template, reheated, and encased in glass. Problems often occur when designs are first touched by the gather of molten glass. If the design is quite delicate and involves minute pieces, it can be destroyed in an instant.Torchwork
Torchwork is a process of using heated glass rods to lay down a design or image onto another glass surface. The glassmaker heats a colored glass rod with a torch and “paints” or melts the glass directly onto the surface of the weight [2.70-2.77].
Torchwork can be done in layers to give a three-dimensional effect. In a process developed by
2.69 Checking the finished weight
2.70 leafing the glass with a torch
2.71 Creating the design on surface of weight
2.72 Using a pick to spread the design
2.73 Shaping the weight with n wooden block
2.74 Fanning the neck of the weight
2.75 Breaking the weight off the ponti! rod
2.76 hire-polishing the bottom of the weight
2.77 Finished miniature weight with undersea motif
Lundberg Studios, a completed decorative element is surrounded bv a gather of glass, with another decoration and another layer of glass added to increase the sense of dimension. Artist Chris Buzz-ini, who is adept at both lampwork and torchwork, compares them: “Torchwork is a much more immediate process than lampworking-—more like Japanese brush painting.”
Most studio artists creating paperweights today utilize the torchwork and/or the lampwork technique of paperweight making. Those using a pot furnace, such as Lundberg Studios, Orient & Flume, and Correia, create their motifs using the torchwork method primarily.
Sulphides or Cameo IncrustationSulphides are molded ceramic cameos encased in crystal, although the origin or meaning of the term is not clearly known. The process ot cameo incrustation has existed since ancient times, but early examples of this technique only partially enclosed the object. In 1750 a Bohemian manufacturer attempted to completely encase small clay figures in glass but was not consistently successful. Over the years several manufacturers and individuals experimented with cameo incrustation. An Englishman, Apsley Pellatt, further refined and developed the process. In 1819 he recorded a patent for sulphide production called “crystallo ceramie.” He described the process in Curiosities of Glass Making:
Bv this process, ornaments of any description … are enclosed within the Glass, so as to become chemically imperishable. The substance of which these ornaments are composed, is less fusible than Glass; it is incapable of generating air, and at the same time is susceptible of contraction or expansion, as, in the course of manufacture, the glass becomes hot or cold. It may previously be formed into any device or figure, by either moulding or modelling; and may be painted with metallic colors, which are fixed by exposure to a melting heat. These ornaments are introduced within the body of the glass while the latter is hot, by which means the air is effectually excluded; the incrustation being thus actually incorporated in the glass…. The composition used in the patent incrustations is of a white silvery appearance, which has a superb effect when enclosed in richly cut glass.
