goblet

The colorless glassware of Catalonia is renowned for the high quality of the materials employed in its manufacture. Its amber tint, which resulted from the method used to decolorize the glass, is often helpful in distinguishing Catalan glass from objects produced elsewhere in Europe. A wide variety of designs were made in Catalonia, that, while inspired by utilitarian typologies, were highly prized as decorative objects because of their sophistication and fragility. Their forms can also be found in ceramic and silver wares. The largest and most important component of this glassware consists of goblets and dessert stands with a conventional three-part structure (bowl, stem, and base) and a boundless variety of forms. either with glasswort (barilla) or with tartar. Barilla, mainly from Alicante, had been exported for centuries throughout Europe for the making of glass. This salt-marsh plant was burned, and the ashes were added to the batch as a flux. Marsh samphire, another plant used as a fluxing agent, afforded even better results. The Venetians acquired it from the Syrian coast to produce their cristallo, and some Catalan documents indicate that it was imported from the coasts of Roussillon. Chalcedony (calcedonia) or bloodstone (pedra sanguina) was added to these ingredients as a decolorizer. (see 60.3.86)