Opalescent Glass

The French opalescent glass those of past creations by Sabino, Etling, Pierre D’Avesn, André Hunebelle and René Lalique can instantly change colour from, milky blue to creamy purple. It also has the ability to display a complete colour change in translucent golden amber when the light shines one the surface.  

The opalescent colour is produced by the slower cooling of the molten glass in those parts which are thick, causing some crystallization inside the glass.

 The production of opalescent glass also dangerous for the health of craftsmen: the fact is that extraordinarily poisonous arsenic oxide was added to give these amazing shimmering shades.

 Artistic French glass was produced in too small editions as its production was too laborious and expensive. It fell immediately into the family collections of wealthy people.  For limited art editions, wooden glass molds were usually used, made of special types of hard wood, such as pear, aspen, beech. They have dense wood, which evenly burns out under the glass mass, which ensures high quality products.

 It is known that glass was used as a material for decorative and applied art only during periods of economic prosperity. For the same reason, after the Second World War, no one began to restore the lost technologies of opalescent glass, following the path of making them cheaper and simpler.

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